The  Works  of 

Victor   Hugo 


Copyrighted  Translati  >!i-  h 

Isabel  F.  HapL'uud, 

Huntingfon  Smith 

and    Helen  B.  Dole 


Les    Misenibles 
Volume  II 


T  H  K         K  !•   I.  M  S  C  O  T 


HILLENORMAND  NEVFR   An 

f'HiLD  FXrFPT  iw  A 

'N  A  ShVHRh 


a-- 


The  Works  of 

Victor  Hug 

o 

Copyrighted  Translations  by 

Isabel  F.  Hapgood, 
Huntington  Smith 
and  Helen  B.  Dole 

Les   Miserables 
Volume  II 

THE        KELMSCOTT        SOCIETY 
PUBLISHERS                        :           NEW    YORK 

MARIUS. 


COPYBIQHT,   1887, 

Br  THOMAS  Y.  CBOWELL  &  Co. 


CONTENTS 


BOOK  FIRST.— PARIS  STUDIED  IN  ITS  ATOM 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.     Parvulus 1 

II.     Some  of  his  Particular  Characteristics 2 

III.  He  is  Agreeable 3 

IV.  He  may  be  of  Use 4 

V.     His  Frontiers 6 

VI.     A  Bit  of  History 8 

VII.     The  Gamin  should  have  his  Place  in  the  Classifications 

of    India 10 

VIII.     In  which  the  Reader  will  find  a  Charming  Saying  of  the 

Last  King 12 

IX.     The  Old  Soul  of  Gaul 14 

X.     Ecce  Paris,  ecce  Homo 15 

XI.     To  Scoff,  to  Reign 18 

XII.     The  Future  Latent  in  the  People 20 

XIII.     Little  Gavroche 21 

BOOK  SECOND.— THE  GREAT  BOURGEOIS 

I.     Ninety  Years  and  Thirty-two  Teeth 25 

II.     Like  Master,  Like  House 27 

III.  Luc-Esprit 28 

IV.  A  Centenarian  Aspirant 29 

V.     Ba.^ue  and  Nioolette 30 

VI.     In  which  Magnon  and  her  Two  Children  are  seen     .      .  31 

VII.     Rule:  Receive  No  One  except  in  the  Evening  ....  33 

VIII.     Two  do  not  make  a  Pair 84 


iv  CONTENTS 

BOOK  THIRD.— THE   GRANDFATHER   AND 
CHAPTEB  THE  GRANDSON  PAOB 

I.     An    Ancient   Salon 37 

II.     One  of  the  Red  Spectres  of  that  Epoch 41 

III.  Rcquiescant 48 

IV.  End  of  the  Brigand 50 

V.     The  Utility  of  going  to  Mass,  in  order  to  become  a 

Revolutionist CO 

VI.     The  Consequences  of  having  met  a  Warden    ....  62 

VII.     Some  Petticoat 69 

VIII.     Marble  against  Granite 75 

BOOK  FOURTH.— THE  FRIENDS  OF  THE  ABC 

I.     A  Group  which  barely  missed  becoming  Historic  ...  81 

II.     Blondeau's  Funeral  Oration  by  Bossuet 96 

III.  Marius'  Astonishments 100 

IV.  The  Back  Room  of  the  Cafe  Musain 102 

V.     Enlargement  of  Horizon 110 

VI.     Res  Angusta 114 

BOOK  FIFTH.— THE  EXCELLENCE  OF  MISFORTUNE 

I.     Marius  Indigent 118 

II.     Marius  Poor 120 

III.  Marius  Grown  Up 124 

IV.  M.  Mabeuf 129 

V.     Poverty  a  Good  Neighbor  for  Misery 134 

VI.     The  Substitute 136 

BOOK  SIXTH.— THE  CONJUNCTION  OF  TWO  STARS 

I.     The  Sobriquet;  Mode  of  Formation  of  Family  Names  .  142 

II.     Lux  Facta  Est 145 

III.  Effect  of  the  Spring 148 

IV.  Beginning  of  a  Great  Malady 149 

V.     Divers  Claps  of  Thunder  fall  on  Ma'am  Bougon  .      .      .  152 

VI.     Taken  Prisoner 153 

VII.     Adventures  of  the  Letter  U  delivered  over  to  Conjectures  156 


CONTENTS  V 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

VIII.     The  Veterans  themselves  can  be  Happy 158 

IX.     Eclipse 160 

BOOK  SEVENTH.— PATRON  MINETTE 

I,     Mines  and  Miners 164 

II.     The  Lowest  Depths 167 

III.  Babet,  Gueulemer,  Claquesous,  and  Montparnasse  .      .  168 

IV.  Composition  of  the  Troupe 171 

BOOK  EIGHTH.— THE  WICKED  POOR  MAN 

I.     Marius,  while  seeking  a  Girl  in  a  Bonnet  encounters  a 

Man  in  a  Cap 175 

II.     Treasure  Trove 177 

III.  Quadrifrons 179 

IV.  A  Rose  in  Misery 183 

V.     A  Providential  Peep-Hole 191 

VI.     The  Wild  Man  in  his  Lair 194 

VIT.     Strategy  and  Tactics 198 

VIII.     The  Ray  of  Light  in  the  Hovel 203 

IX.     Jondrette  comes  near  Weeping 205 

X.     Tariff  of  Licensed  Cabs,  Two  Francs  an  Hour    .      .      .  209 

XI.     Offers  of  Service  from  Misery  to  Wretchedness  .      .      .  213 

XII.     The  Use  made  of  M.  Leblanc's  Five-Franc  Piece.      .      .  216 

XIII.  Solus   cum    Solo,   in    Loco   Remoto,   non   cogitabuntur 

orare  Pater  Noster 222 

XIV.  In  which  a  Police  Agent  bestows  Two  Fistfuls  on  a 

Lawyer 225 

XV.     Jondrette  makes  his  Purchases 229 

XVI.     In  which  will  be  found  the  Word?  to  an  English  Air 

which  was  in  Fashion  in  1832 232 

XVII.     The  Use  made  of  Marius'  Five- Franc  Piece  ....  236 

XVIII.     Marius' Two  Chairs  form  a  Vis-a-Vis 241 

XIX.     Occupying  One's  Self  with  Obscure  Depths  ....  243 

XX.     The  Trap 247 

XXI.     One  should  always  begin  by  arrest  ing  the  Victims  .      .  275 

XXII.     The  Little  One  who  was  crving  in  Volume  Two  .  279 


MARIUS 


BOOK  FIRST.— PARIS  STUDIED  IN  ITS  ATOM 
CHAPTER   I 

PARVULUS 

PARIS  has  a  child,  and  the  forest  has  a  bird;  the  bird  is 
called  the  sparrow ;  the  child  is  called  the  gamin. 

Couple  these  two  ideas  which  contain,  the  one  all  the  fur- 
nace, the  other  all  the  dawn ;  strike  these  two  sparks  together, 
Paris,  childhood;  there  leaps  out  from  them  a  little  being. 
Homuncio,  Plautus  would  say. 

This  little  being  is  joyous.  He  has  not  food  every  day,  and 
he  goes  to  the  play  every  evening,  if  he  sees  good.  He  has  no 
shirt  on  his  body,  no  shoes  on  his  feet,  no  roof  over  his  head; 
he  is  like  the  flies  of  heaven,  who  have  none  of  these  things. 
He  is  from  seven  to  thirteen  years  of  age,  he  lives  in  bands, 
roams  the  streets,  lodges  in  the  open  air,  wears  an  old  pair  of 
trousers  of  his  father's,  which  descend  below  his  heels,  an  old 
hat  of  some  other  father,  which  descends  below  his  ears,  a  sin- 
gle suspender  of  yellow  listing;  he  runs,  lies  in  wait,  rummages 
about,  wastes  time,  blackens  pipes,  swears  like  a  convict, 
haunts  the  wine-shop,  knows  thieves,  calls  gay  women  tliou, 
talks  slang,  sings  obscene  songs,  and  has  no  evil  in  his  heart. 
This  is  because  he  has  in  his  heart  a  pearl,  innocence;  and 
pearls  are  not  to  be  dissolved  in  mud.  So  long  as  man  is  in 
his  childhood,  God  wills  that  he  shall  be  innocent. 

If  one  were  to  ask  that  enormous  city:  "What  is  this?"  she 
would  reply :  "It  is  my  little  one." 


2  MAKIU8 

CHAPTER   II 

SOME   OF   HIS    PARTICULAR   CHARACTERISTICS 

THE  gamin — the  street  Arab — of  Paris  is  the  dwarf  of  the 
giant. 

Let  us  not  exaggerate,  this  cherub  of  the  gutter  sometimes 
has  a  shirt,  but,  in  that  case,  he  owns  but  one;  he  sometimes 
has  shoes,  but  then  they  have  no  soles;  he  sometimes  has  a 
lodging,  and  he  loves  it,  for  he  finds  his  mother  there ;  but  he 
prefers  the  street,  because  there  he  finds  liberty.  He  has  his 
own  games,  his  own  bits  of  mischief,  whose  foundation  con- 
sists of  hatred  for  the  bourgeois ;  his  peculiar  metaphors :  to  be 
dead  is  to  eat  dandelions  by  the  root;  his  own  occupations,  call- 
ing hackney-coaches,  letting  down  carriage-steps,  establishing 
means  of  transit  between  the  two  sides  of  a  street  in  heavy 
rains,  which  he  calls  making  the  bridge  of  arts,  crying  dis- 
courses pronounced  by  the  authorities  in  favor  of  the  French 
people,  cleaning  out  the  cracks  in  the  pavement;  he  has  his 
own  coinage,  which  is  composed  of  all  the  little  morsels  of 
worked  copper  which  are  found  on  the  public  streets.  This 
curious  money,  which  receives  the  name  of  loqucs — rags — has 
an  invariable  and  well-regulated  currency  in  this  little  Bo- 
hemia of  children. 

Lastly,  he  has  his  own  fauna,  which  he  observes  attentively 
in  the  corners ;  the  lady-bird,  the  death's-head  plant-louse,  the 
daddy-long-legs,  "the  devil,"  a  black  insect,  which  menaces  by 
twisting  about  its  tail  armed  with  two  horns.  He  has  his 
fabulous  monster,  which  has  scales  under  its  belly,  but  is  not 
a  lizard,  which  has  pustules  on  its  back,  but  is  not  a  toad, 
which  inhabits  the  nooks  of  old  lime-kilns  and  wells  that  have 
run  dry,  which  is  black,  hairy,  sticky,  which  crawls  sometimes 
slowly,  sometimes  rapidly,  which  has  no  cry,  but  which  has  a 
look,  and  is  so  terrible  that  no  one  has  ever  beheld  it;  he  calls 
this  monster  "the  deaf  thing."  The  search,  for  these  "deaf 
things"  among  the  stones  is  a  joy  of  formidable  nature. 
Another  pleasure  consists  in  suddenly  prying  up  a  paving- 


PARIS  STUDIED  IN  ITS  ATOM  3 

stone,  and  taking  a  look  at  the  wood-lice.  Each  region  of 
Paris  is  celebrated  for  the  interesting  treasures  which  are  to  be 
found  there.  There  are  ear-wigs  in  the  timber-yards  of  the 
Ursulines,  there  are  millepeds  in  the  Pantheon,  there  are  tad- 
poles in  the  ditches  of  the  Champs-de-Mars. 

As  far  as  sayings  are  concerned,  this  child  has  as  many  of 
them  as  Talleyrand.  He  is  no  less  cynical,  but  he  is  more  hon- 
est. He  is  endowed  with  a  certain  indescribable,  unexpected 
joviality:  he  upsets  the  composure  of  the  shopkeeper  with  his 
wild  Janghter.  He  ranges  boldly  from  high  comedy  to  farce. 

A  funeral  passes  by.  Among  those  who  accompany  the 
dead  there  is  a  doctor.  "Hey  there !'"'  shouts  some  street 
Arab,  "how  long  has  it  been  customary  for  doctors  to  carry 
home  their  own  work?" 

Another  is  in  a  crowd.  A  grave  man,  adorned  with  spec- 
tacles and  trinkets,  turns  round  indignantly :  "You  good- 
for-nothing,  you  have  seized  my  wife's  waist !" — "I,  sir  ? 
Search  me!" 

CHAPTER    III 

HE   IS    AGREEABLE 

IN  the  evening,  thanks  to  a  few  sous,  which  he  always  finds 
means  to  procure,  the  liomuncio  enters  a  theatre.  On  crossing 
that  magic  threshold,  he  becomes  transfigured;  he  was  the 
street  Arab,  he  becomes  the  titi.1  Theatres  are  a  sort  of  ship 
turned  upside  down  with  the  keel  in  the  air.  It  is  in  that  keel 
that  the  titi  huddle  together.  The  titi  is  to  the  gamin  what  the 
moth  is  to  the  larva ;  the  same  being  endowed  with  wings  and 
soaring.  It  suffices  for  him  to  be  there,  with  his  radiance  of 
happiness,  with  his  power  of  enthusiasm  and  joy,  with  his 
hand-clapping,  which  resembles  a  clapping  of  wings,  to  confer 
on  that  narrow,  dark,  fetid,  sordid,  unhealthy,  hideous,  abom- 
inable keel,  the  name  of  Paradise. 

Bestow  on  an  individual  the  useless  and  deprive  him  of  the 
necessary,  and  you  have  the  gamin. 

1Chickcn:  slang  allusion  to  the  noise  made  in  calling  poultry. 


4  MARIU8 

The  gamin  is  not  devoid  of  literary  intuition.  His  tendency, 
and  we  say  it  with  the  proper  amount  of  regret,  would  not 
constitute  classic  taste.  He  is  not  very  academic  by  nature. 
Thus,  to  give  an  example,  the  popularity  of  Mademoiselle  Mars 
among  that  little  audience  of  stormy  children  was  seasoned 
with  a  touch  of  irony.  The  gamin  called  her  Mademoiselle 
Much? — "hide  yourself." 

This  being  bawls  and  scoffs  and  ridicules  and  fights,  has 
rags  like  a  baby  and  tatters  like  a  philosopher,  fishes  in  the 
sewer,  hunts  in  the  cesspool,  extracts  mirth  from  foulness, 
whips  up  the  squares  with  his  wit,  grins  and  bites,  whistles  and 
sings,  shouts  and  shrieks,  tempers  Alleluia  with  Matantur- 
lurette,  chants  every  rhythm  from  the  De  Profundis  to  the 
Jack-pudding,  finds  without  seeking,  knows  what  he  is  ig- 
norant of,  is  a  Spartan  to  the  point  of  thieving,  is  mad  to  wis- 
dom, is  lyrical  to  filth,  would  crouch  down  on  Olympus,  wal- 
lows in  the  dunghill  and  emerges  from  it  covered  with  stars. 
The  gamin  of  Paris  is  Rabelais  in  this  youth. 

He  is  not  content  with  his  trousers  unless  they  have  a  watch- 
pocket. 

He  is  not  easily  astonished,  he  is  still  less  easily  terrified,  he 
makes  songs  on  superstitions,  he  takes  the  wind  out  of  exag- 
gerations, he  twits  mysteries,  he  thrusts  out  his  tongue  at 
ghosts,  he  takes  the  poetry  out  of  stilted  things,  he  introduces 
caricature  into  epic  extravaganzas.  It  is  not  that  he  is  pro- 
saic; far  from  that;  but  he  replaces  the  solemn  vision  by  the 
farcical  phantasmagoria.  If  Adamastor  were  to  appear  to 
him,  the  street  Arab  would  say :  "Hi  there !  The  bugaboo !" 

CHAPTER    IV 

HE    MAY    BE    OF    USE 

PARIS  begins  with  the  lounger  and  ends  with  the  street  Arab, 
two  beings  of  which  no  other  city  is  capable;  the  passive 
acceptance,  which  contents  itself  with  gazing,  and  the  inex- 
haustible initiative;  Prudhomme  and  Fouillou.  Paris  alone 


PARIS  STUDIED  IN  ITS  ATOM  5 

has  this  in  its  natural  history.  The  whole  of  the  monarchy  is 
contained  in  the  lounger;  the  whole  of  anarchy  in  the  gamin. 

This  pale  child  of  the  Parisian  faubourgs  lives  and  develops, 
makes  connections,  "grows  supple"  in  suffering,  in  the  pres- 
ence of  social  realities  and  of  human  things,  a  thoughtful  wit- 
ness. He  thinks  himself  heedless;  and  he  is  not.  He  looks 
and  is  on  the  verge  of  laughter ;  he  is  on  the  verge  of  something 
else  also.  Whoever  you  may  he,  if  your  name  is  Prejudice, 
Abuse,  Ignorance,  Oppression,  Iniquity,  Despotism,  Injustice, 
Fanaticism,  Tyranny,  beware  of  the  gaping  gamin. 

The  little  fellow  will  grow  up. 

Of  what  clay  is  he  made?  Of  the  first  mud  that  comes  to 
hand.  A  handful  of  dirt,  a  breath,  and  behold  Adam.  It  suf- 
fices for  a  God  to  pass  by.  A  God  has  always  passed  over 
the  street  Arab.  Fortune  labors  at  this  tiny  being.  By  the 
word  "fortune"  we  mean  chance,  to  some  extent.  That  pig- 
my kneaded  out  of  common  earth,  ignorant,  unlettered,  giddy, 
vulgar,  low.  Will  that  become  an  Ionian  or  a  Boeotian  ?  Wait, 
currit  rota,  the  spirit  of  Paris,  that  demon  which  creates  the 
children  of  chance  and  the  men  of  destiny,  reversing  the 
process  of  the  Latin  potter,  makes  of  a  jug  an  amphora. 


CHAPTER   V 

HIS    FRONTIERS 

THE  gamin  loves  the  city,  he  also  loves  solitude,  since  he  has 
something  of  the  sage  in  him.  Urbis  amator,  like  Fuscus;  ru- 
n's amator,  like  Flaccus. 

To  roam  thoughtfully  about,  that  is  to  say,  to  lounge,  is  a 
fine  employment  of  time  in  the  eyes  of  the  philosopher;  partic- 
ularly in  that  rather  illegitimate  species  of  campaign,  which  is 
tolerably  ugly  but  odd  and  composed  of  two  natures,  which  sur- 
rounds certain  great  -cities,  notably  Paris.  To  study  the  sub- 
urbs is  to  study  the  amphibious  animal.  End  of  the  trees, 
beginning  of  the  roofs;  end  of  the  grass,  beginning  of  the 


6  MARW8 

pavements;  end  of  the  furrows,  beginning  of  the  shops;  end 
of  the  wheel-ruts,  beginning  of  the  passions ;  end  of  the  divine 
murmur,  beginning  of  the  human  uproar;  hence  an  extraordi- 
nary interest. 

Hence,  in  these  not  very  attractive  places,  indelibly  stamped 
by  the  passing  stroller  with  the  epithet:  melancholy,  the  appar- 
ently objectless  promenades  of  the  dreamer. 

He  who  writes  these  lines  has  long  been  a  prowler  about  the 
barriers  of  Paris,  and  it  is  for  him  a  source  of  profound  souve- 
nirs. That  close-shaven  turf,  those  pebbly  paths,  that  chalk, 
those  pools,  those  harsh  monotonies  of  waste  and  fallow  lands, 
the  plants  of  early  market-garden  suddenly  springing  into 
sight  in  a  bottom,  that  mixture  of  the  savage  and  the  citizen, 
those  vast  desert  nooks  where  the  garrison  drums  practise  nois- 
ily, and  produce  a  sort  of  lisping  of  battle,  those  hermits  by 
day  and  cut-throats  by  night,  that  clumsy  mill  which  turns  in 
the  wind,  the  hoisting-wheels  of  the  quarries,  the  tea-gardens 
at  the  corners  of  the  cemeteries ;  the  mysterious  charm  of  great, 
sombre  walls  squarely  intersecting  immense,  vague  stretches  of 
land  inundated  with  sunshine  and  full  of  butterflies, — all  this 
attracted  him. 

There  is  hardly  any  one  on  earth  who  is  not  acquainted  with 
those  singular  spots,  the  Glaciere,  the  Cunette,  the  hideous  wall 
of  Grenelle  all  speckled  with  balls,  Mont-Parnasse,  the  Fosse- 
aux-Loups,  Aubiers  on  the  bank  of  the  Marne,  Mont-Souris, 
the  Tombe-Issoire,  the  Pierre-Plate  de  Chatillon,  where  there 
is  an  old,  exhausted  quarry  which  no  longer  serves  any  purpose 
except  to  raise  mushrooms,  and  which  is  closed,  on  a  level  with 
the  ground,  by  a  trap-door  of  rotten  planks.  The  campagna 
of  Rome  is  one  idea,  the  banlieue  of  Paris  is  another;  to  behold 
nothing  but  fields,  houses,  or  trees  in  what  a  stretch  of  country 
offers  us,  is  to  remain  on  the  surface;  all  aspects  of  things  are 
thoughts  of  God.  The  spot  where  a  plain  effects  its  junction 
with  a  city  is  always  stamped  with  a  certain  piercing  melan- 
choly. Nature  and  humanity  both  appeal  to  you  at  the  same 
time  there.  Local  originalities  there  make  their  appear- 
ance. 


PARIS  STUDIED  IN  ITS  ATOM  7 

Any  one  who,  like  ourselves,  has  wandered  about  in  these  sol- 
itudes contiguous  to  our  faubourgs,  which  may  be  designated 
as  the  limbos  of  Paris,  has  seen  here  and  there,  in  the  most 
desert  spot,  at  the  most  unexpected  moment,  behind  a  meagre 
hedge,  or  in  the  corner  of  a  lugubrious  wall,  children  grouped 
tumultuously,  fetid,  muddy,  dusty,  ragged,  dishevelled,  play- 
ing hide-and-seek,  and  crowned  with  corn-flowers.  All  of 
them  are  little  ones  who  have  made  their  escape  from  poor 
families.  The  outer  boulevard  is  their  breathing  space;  the 
suburbs  belong  to  them.  There  they  are  eternally  playing  tru- 
ant. There  they  innocently  sing  their  repertory  of  dirty  songs. 
There  they  are,  or  rather,  there  they  exist,  far  from  every  eye, 
in  the  sweet  light  of  May  or  June,  kneeling  round  a  hole  in 
the  ground,  snapping  marbles  with  their  thumbs,  quarrelling 
over  half -farthings,  irresponsible,  volatile,  free  and  happy; 
and,  no  sooner  do  they  catch  sight  of  you  than  they  recollect 
that  they  have  an  industry,  and  that  they  must  earn  their  liv- 
ing, and  they  offer  to  sell  you  an  old  woollen  stocking  filled 
with  cockchafers,  or  a  bunch  of  lilacs.  These  encounters  with 
strange  children  are  one  of  the  charming  and  at  the  same  time 
poignant  graces  of  the  environs  of  Paris. 

Sometimes  there  are  little  girls  among  the  throng  of  boys, — 
are  they  their  sisters? — who  are  almost  young  maidens,  thin, 
feverish,  with  sunburnt  hands,  covered  with  freckles,  crowned 
with  poppies  and  ears  of  rye,  gay,  haggard,  barefooted.  They 
can  be  seen  devouring  cherries  among  the  wheat.  In  the  even- 
ing they  can  be  heard  laughing.  These  groups,  warmly  illumi- 
nated by  the  full  glow  of  midday,  or  indistinctly  seen  in  the 
twilight,  occupy  the  thoughtful  man  for  a  very  long  time,  and 
these  visions  mingle  with  his  dreams. 

Paris,  centre,  banlieue,  circumference;  this  constitutes  all 
the  earth  to  those  children.  They  never  venture  beyond  this. 
They  can  no  more  escape  from  the  Parisian  atmosphere  than 
fish  can  escape  from  the  water.  For  them,  nothing  exists  two 
leagues  beyond  the  barriers :  Ivry,  Gentilly,  Arcueil,  Belleville, 
Aubervilliers,  Menilrnontant,  Choisy-le-Hoi,  Billancourt,  Meu- 
don,  Issy,  Vanvre,  Sevres,  Puteaux,  Neuilly,  Gennevilliers, 


g  MA.R1U8 

Colombes,  Romainville,  Chatou,  Asnieres,  Bougival,  Nanterre, 
Enghicn,  Noisy-le-Sec,  Nogcnt,  Gournay,  Drancy,  Gonesse; 
the  universe  ends  there. 


CHAPTER   VI 

A   BIT   OF   HISTORY 

AT  the  epoch,  nearly  contemporary  by  the  way,  when  the 
action  of  this  book  takes  place,  there  was  not,  as  there  is  to-day, 
a  policeman  at  the  corner  of  every  street  (a  benefit  which  there 
is  no  time  to  discuss  here) ;  stray  children  abounded  in  Paris. 
The  statistics  give  an  average  of  two  hundred  and  sixty  home- 
less children  picked  up  annually  at  that  period,  by  the  police 
patrols,  in  unenclosed  lands,  in  houses  in  process  of  construc- 
tion, and  under  the  arches  of  the  bridges.  One  of  these  nests, 
which  has  become  famous,  produced  "the  swallows  of  the 
bridge  of  Arcola."  This  is,  moreover,  the  most  disastrous  of 
social  symptoms.  All  crimes  of  the  man  begin  in  the  vaga- 
bondage of  the  child. 

Let  us  make  an  exception  in  favor  of  Paris,  nevertheless. 
In  a  relative  measure,  and  in  spite  of  the  souvenir  which  we 
have  just  recalled,  the  exception  is  just.  While  in  any  other 
great  city  the  vagabond  child  is  a  lost  man,  while  nearly  every- 
where the  child  left  to  itself  is,  in  some  sort,  sacrificed  and 
abandoned  to  a  kind  of  fatal  immersion  in  the  public  vices 
which  devour  in  him  honesty  and  conscience,  the  street  boy 
of  Paris,  we  insist  on  this  point,  however  defaced  and  injured 
on  the  surface,  is  almost  intact  on  the  interior.  It  is  a  mag- 
nificent thing  to  put  on  record,  and  one  which  shines  forth 
in  the  splendid  probity  of  our  popular  revolutions,  that  a 
certain  incorruptibility  results  from  the  idea  which  exists  in 
the  air  of  Paris,  as  salt  exists  in  the  water  of  the  ocean.  To 
breathe  Paris  preserves  the  soul. 

What  we  have  just  said  takes  away  nothing  of  the  anguish 
of  heart  which  one  experiences  every  time  that  one  meets  one 


PA  I!  IK  HTLDIED  IN  ITS  ATOM  9 

of  these  children  around  whom  one  fancies  that  he  heholds 
floating  the  threads  of  a  hroken  family.  In  the  civilization  of 
the  present  day,  incomplete  as  it  still  is,  it  is  not  a  very 
ahnormal  thing  to  behold  these  fractured  families  pouring 
themselves  out  into  the  darkness,  not  knowing  clearly  what 
has  become  of  their  children,  and  allowing  their  own  entrails 
to  fall  on  the  public  highway.  Hence  these  obscure  destinies. 
This  is  called,  for  this  sad  thing  has  given  rise  to  an  expres- 
sion, "to  be  cast  on  the  pavements  of  Paris." 

Let  it  be  said  by  the  way,  that  this  abandonment  of  children 
was  not  discouraged  by  the  ancient  monarchy.  A  little  of 
Egypt  and  Bohemia  in  the  lower  regions  suited  the  upper 
spheres,  and  compassed  the  aims  of  the  powerful.  The  hatred 
of  instruction  for  the  children  of  the  people  was  a  dogma. 
What  is  the  use  of  "half-lights"  ?  Such  was  the  countersign. 
Now,  the  erring  child  is  the  corollary  of  the  ignorant  child. 

Besides  this,  the  monarchy  sometimes  was  in  need  of  chil- 
dren, and  in  that  case  it  skimmed  the  streets. 

Under  Louis  XIV.,  not  to  go  any  further  back,  the  king 
rightly  desired  to  create  a  fleet.  The  idea  was  a  good  one. 
But  let  us  consider  the  means.  There  can  be  no  fleet,  if, 
beside  the  sailing  ship,  that  plaything  of  the  winds,  and  for 
the  purpose  of  towing  it,  in  case  of  necessity,  there  is  not  the 
vessel  which  goes  where  it  pleases,  either  by  means  of  oars  or 
of  steam ;  the  galleys  were  then  to  the  marine  what  steamers 
are  to-day.  Therefore,  galleys  were  necessary ;  but  the  galley 
is  moved  only  by  the  galley-slave;  hence,  galley-slaves  were 
required.  Colbert  had  the  commissioners  of  provinces  and  the 
parliaments  make  as  many  convicts  as  possible.  The  magis- 
tracy showed  a  great  deal  of  complaisance  in  the  matter.  A 
man  kept  his  hat  on  in  the  presence  of  a  procession — it  was  a 
Huguenot  attitude;  he  was  sent  to  the  galley?.  A  child  was 
encountered  in  the  streets;  provided  that  he  was  fifteen  years 
of  age  and  did  not  know  where  he  was  to  sleep,  he  was  sent  to 
the  galleys.  Grand  reign ;  grand  century. 

Under  Louis  XV.  children  disappeared  in  Paris ;  the  police 
carried  them  off,  for  what  mysterious  purpose  no  one  knew. 


10  MARIU8 

People  whispered  with  terror  monstrous  conjectures  as  to  the 
king's  baths  of  purple.  BarMer  speaks  ingenuously  of  these 
things.  It  sometimes  happened  that  the  exempts  rf  the  guard, 
when  they  ran  short  of  children,  took  those  who  had  fathers. 
The  fathers,  in  despair,  attacked  the  exempts.  In  that  case, 
the  parliament  intervened  and  had  some  one  hung.  Who? 
The  exempts  ?  No,  the  fathers. 


CHAPTER   VII 

THE  GAMIN  SHOULD  HAVE  HIS  PLACE  IN  THE  CLASSIFICATIONS 

OF  INDIA 

THE  body  of  street  Arabs  in  Paris  almost  constitutes  a 
caste.  One  might  almost  say:  Not  every  one  who  wishes  to 
belong  to  it  can  do  so. 

This  word  gamin  was  printed  for  the  first  time,  and  reached 
popular  speech  through  the  literary  tongue,  in  1834.  It  is  in 
a  little  work  entitled  Claude  Gueux  that  this  word  made  its 
appearance.  The  horror  was  lively.  The  word  passed  into 
circulation. 

The  elements  which  constitute  the  consideration  of  the 
gamins  for  each  other  are  very  various.  We  have  known  and 
associated  with  one  who  was  greatly  respected  and  vastly 
admired  because  he  had  seen  a  man  fall  from  the  top  of  the 
tower  of  Notre-Dame;  another,  because  he  had  succeeded  in 
making  his  way  into  the  rear  courtyard  where  the  statues  of 
the  dome  of  the  Invalides  had  been  temporarily  deposited,  and 
had  "prigged"  some  lead  from  them;  a  third,  because  he 
had  seen  a  diligence  tip  over;  still  another,  because  he 
"knew*'  a  soldier  who  came  near  putting  out  the  eye  of  a 
citizen. 

This  explains  that  famous  exclamation  of  a  Parisian  gamin, 
a  profound  epiphonema,  which  the  vulgar  herd  laughs  at  with- 
out comprehending, — Dieu  de  Dieu!  What  ill-hick  J  do  have  I 
to  think  that  I  have  never  yet  seen  anybody  tumble  from  a 


PARIK  STUDIED  IN  ITS  ATOM  H 

fifth-story  window!  (I  have  pronounced  I'ave  and  fifth  pro- 
nounced fift'.) 

Surely,  this  saying  of  a  peasant  is  a  fine  one :  "Father  So- 
and-So.  your  wife  has  died  of  her  malady ;  why  did  you  not 
send  for  the  doctor?"  "What  would  you  have,  sir,  we  poor 
folks  die  of  ourselves."  But  if  the  peasant's  whole  passivity 
lies  in  this  saying,  the  whole  of  the  free-thinking  anarchy  of 
the  brat  of  the  faubourgs  is,  assuredly,  contained  in  this  other 
saying.  A  man  condemned  to  death  is  listening  to  his  con- 
fessor in  the  tumbrel.  The  child  of  Paris  exclaims:  "He  is 
talking  to  his  black  cap  !  Oh,  the  sneak  !" 

A  certain  audacity  on  matters  of  religion  sets  off  the  gamin. 
To  be  strong-minded  is  an  important  item. 

To  be  present  at  executions  constitutes  a  duty.  He  shows 
himself  at  the  guillotine,  and  he  laughs.  He  calls  it  by  all 
sorts  of  pet  names :  The  End  of  the  Soup,  The  Growler,  The 
Mother  in  the  Blue  (the  sky),  The  Last  Mouthful,  etc.,  etc. 
In  order  not  to  lose  anything  of  the  affair,  he  scales  the  walls, 
he  hoists  himself  to  balconies,  he  ascends  trees,  he  suspends 
himself  to  gratings,  he  clings  fast  to  chimneys.  The  gamin  is 
born  a  tiler  as  he  is  born  a  mariner.  A  roof  inspires  him  with 
no  more  fear  than  a  mast.  There  is  no  festival  which  comes 
up  to  an  execution  on  the  Place  de  Greve.  Samson  and  the 
Abbe  Montes  are  the  truly  popular  names.  They  hoot  at  the 
victim  in  order  to  encourage  him.  They  sometimes  admire 
him.  Lacenaire,  when  a  gamin,  on  seeing  the  hideous  Dautin 
die  bravely,  uttered  these  words  which  contain  a  future:  "I 
was  jealous  of  him."  In  the  brotherhood  of  gamins  Voltaire 
is  not  known,  but  Papavoine  is.  "Politicians"  are  confused 
with  assassins  in  the  same  legend.  They  have  a  tradition  as 
to  everybody's  last  garment.  It  is  known  that  Tolleron  had 
a  fireman's  cap,  Avril  an  otter  cap,  Losvel  a  round  hat,  that 
old  Delaporte  was  bald  and  bare-headed,  that  Castaing  was 
all  ruddy  and  very  handsome,  that  Bories  had  a  romantic 
small  beard,  that  Jean  Martin  kept  on  his  suspenders,  that 
Lecouffe  and  his  mother  quarrelled.  "Don't  reproach  each 
other  for  your  basket,"  shouted  a  gamin  to  thorn.  Another,  in 


12  MARIUB 

order  to  get  a  look  at  Debacker  as  he  passed,  and  being  too 
small  in  the  crowd,  caught  sight  of  the  lantern  on  the  quay 
and  climbed  it.  A  gendarme  stationed  opposite  frowned. 
"Let  me  climb  up,  m'sieu  le  gendarme,"  said  the  gamin.  And, 
to  soften  the  heart  of  the  authorities,  he  added:  "I  will 
not  fall."  "I  don't  care  if  you  do,"  retorted  the  gen- 
darme. 

In  the  brotherhood  of  gamins,  a  memorable  accident  counts 
for  a  great  deal.  One  reaches  the  height  of  consideration  if 
one  chances  to  cut  one's  self  very  deeply,  "to  the  very 
bone." 

The  fist  is  no  mediocre  element  of  respect.  One  of  the 
things  that  the  gamin  is  fondest  of  saying  is :  "I  am  fine  and 
strong,  come  now !"  To  be  left-handed  renders  you  very 
enviable.  A  squint  is  highly  esteemed. 


CHAPTER    VIII 

IN   WHICH  THE  READER   WILL  FIND  A   CHARMING   SAYING  OP 
THE  LAST  KING 

IN  summer,  he  metamorphoses  himself  into  a  frog ;  and  in 
the  evening,  when  night  is  falling,  in  front  of  the  bridges  of 
Austerlitz  and  Jena,  from  the  tops  of  coal  wagons,  and  the 
washerwomen's  boats,  he  hurls  himself  headlong  into  the 
Seine,  and  into  all  possible  infractions  of  the  laws  of  modesty 
and  of  the  police.  Nevertheless  the  police  keep  an  eye  on 
him.  and  the  result  is  a  highly  dramatic  situation  which  once 
gave  rise  to  a  fraternal  and  memorable  cry ;  that  cry  which 
was  celebrated  about  1830,  is  a  strategic  warning  from  gamin 
to  gamin ;  it  scans  like  a  verse  from  Homer,  with  a  notation 
as  inexpressible  as  the  eleusiac  chant  of  the  Panathenaea,  and 
in  it  one  encounters  again  the  ancient  Evohe.  Here  it  is: 
"Ohe,  Titi,  oheee!  Here  comes  the  bobby,  here  comes  the 
p'lice,  pick  up  your  duds  and  be  off,  through  the  sewer  with 
you !" 


PARIS  STUDIED  IN  ITS  ATOM  13 

Sometimes  this  gnat  —  that  is  what  he  calls  himself  —  knows 
how  to  read;  sometimes  he  knows  how  to  write;  he  always 
knows  how  to  daub.  He  does  not  hesitate  to  acquire,  by  no 
one  knows  what  mysterious  mutual  instruction,  all  the  talents 
which  can  be  of  use  to  the  public;  from  1815  to  1830,  he 
imitated  the  cry  of  the  turkey  ;  from  1830  to  1848,  he  scrawled 
pears  on  the  walls.  One  summer  evening,  when  Louis  Phil- 
ippe was  returning  home  on  foot,  he  saw  a  little  fellow,  no 
higher  than  his  knee,  perspiring  and  climbing  up  to  draw  a 
gigantic  pear  in  charcoal  on  one  of  the  pillars  of  the  gate  of 
Neuilly  ;  the  King,  with  that  good-nature  which  came  to  him 
from  Henry  IV.,  helped  the  gamin,  finished  the  pear,  and 
gave  the  child  a  louis,  saying:  "The  pear  is  on  that  also."1 
The  gamin  loves  uproar.  A  certain  state  of  violence  pleases 
him.  He  execrates  "the  cures."  One  day,  in  the  Rue  de 
1'Universite,  one  of  these  scamps  was  putting  his  thumb  to 
his  nose  at  the  carriage  gate  of  No.  69.  "Why  are  you  doing 
that  at  the  gate  ?"  a  passer-by  asked.  The  boy  replied  :  "There 
is  a  cure  there."  It  was  there,  in  fact,  that  the  Papal  Nuncio 
lived. 

Nevertheless,  whatever  may  be  the  Voltairianism  of  the 
small  gamin,  if  the  occasion  to  become  a  chorister  presents 
itself,  it  is  quite  possible  that  he  will  accept,  and  in  that  case 
he  serves  the  mass  civilly.  There  are  two  things  to  which  he 
plays  Tantalus,  and  which  he  always  desires  without  ever 
attaining  them  :  to  overthrow  the  government,  and  to  get  his 
trousers  sewed  up  again. 

The  gamin  in  his  perfect  state  possesses  all  the  policemen  of 
Paris,  and  can  always  put  the  name  to  the  face  of  any  one 
which  he  chances  to  meet.  He  can  tell  them  off  on  the  tips  of 
his  fingers.  He  studies  their  habits,  and  he  has  special  notes 
on  each  one  of  them.  He  reads  the  souls  of  the  police  like  an 
open  book.  He  will  tell  you  fluently  and  without  flinching: 
"Such  an  one  is  a  traitor;  such  another  is  very  malicious; 
such  another  is  great;  such  another  is  ridiculous."  (All  these 


XVI  1  1.  is  represented  in  comic  pictures  of  that  day  as  hav- 
ing a  pear-shaped  head. 


14  MARIU8 

words :  traitor,  malicious,  great,  ridiculous,  have  a  particular 
meaning  in  his  mouth.)  That  one  imagines  that  he  owns  the 
Pont-Xeuf,  and  he  prevents  people  from  walking  on  the 
cornice  outside  the  parapet ;  that  other  has  a  mania  for  pull- 
ing person's  ears;  etc.,  etc. 


CHAPTER   IX 

THE  OLD  SOUL  OF  GAUL 

THERE  was  something  of  that  boy  in  Poquelin,  the  son  of 
the  fish-market;  Beaumarchais  had  something  of  it.  Gamin- 
^rie  is  a  shade  of  the  Gallic  spirit.  Mingled  with  good  sense, 
it  sometimes  adds  force  to  the  latter,  as  alcohol  does  to  wine. 
Sometimes  it  is  a  defect.  Homer  repeats  himself  eternally, 
granted ;  one  may  say  that  Voltaire  plays  the  gamin.  Camille 
Desmoulins  was  a  native  of  the  faubourgs.  Championnet, 
who  treated  miracles  brutally,  rose  from  the  pavements  of 
Paris;  he  had,  when  a  small  lad,  inundated  the  porticos  of 
Saint-Jean  de  Beauvais,  and  of  Saint-fitienne  du  Mont ;  he 
had  addressed  the  shrine  of  Sainte-Genevieve  familiarly  to 
give  orders  to  the  phial  of  Saint  Januarius. 

The  gamin  of  Paris  is  respectful,  ironical,  and  insolent. 
He  has  villainous  teeth,  because  he  is  badly  fed  and  his 
stomach  suffers,  and  handsome  eyes  because  he  has  wit.  If 
Jehovah  himself  were  present,  he  would  go  hopping  up  the 
steps  of  paradise  on  one  foot.  He  is  strong  on  boxing.  All 
beliefs  are  possible  to  him.  He  plays  in  the  gutter,  and 
straightens  himself  up  with  a  revolt;  his  effrontery  persists 
even  in  the  presence  of  grape-shot ;  he  was  a  scapegrace,  he 
is  a  hero ;  like  the  little  Theban,  he  shakes  the  skin  from  the 
lion;  Barra  the  drummer-boy  was  a  gamin  of  Paris;  he 
shouts :  "Forward !"  as  the  horse  of  Scripture  says  "Vah !" 
and  in  a  moment  he  has  passed  from  the  small  brat  to  the 
giant. 

This  child  of  the  puddle  is  also  the  child  of  the  ideal. 


PARIS  STUDIED  IN  ITS  ATOM  15 

Measure  that  spread  of  wings  which  reaches  from  Moliere  to 
Barra. 

To  sum  up  the  whole,  and  in  one  word,  the  gamin  is  a  being 
who  amuses  himself,  because  he  is  unhappy. 


CHAPTER   X 

ECCE  PARIS,  ECCE  HOMO 

To  sum  it  all  up  once  more,  the  Paris  gamin  of  to-day,  like 
the  grcBculus  of  Rome  in  days  gone  by,  is  the  infant  populace 
with  the  wrinkle  of  the  old  world  on  his  brow. 

The  gamin  is  a  grace  to  the  nation,  and  at  the  same  time 
a  disease ;  a  disease  which  must  be  cured,  how  ?  By  light. 

Light  renders  healthy. 

Light  kindles. 

All  generous  social  irradiations  spring  from  science,  letters, 
arts,  education.  Make  men,  make  men.  Give  them  light 
that  they  may  warm  you.  Sooner  or  later  the  splendid  ques- 
tion of  universal  education  will  present  itself  with  the  irre- 
sistible authority  of  the  absolute  truth ;  and  then,  those  who 
govern  under  the  superintendence  of  the  French  idea  will 
have  to  make  this  choice ;  the  children  of  France  or  the  gamins 
of  Paris;  flames  in  the  light  or  will-o'-the-wisps  in  the  gloom. 

The  gamin  expresses  Paris,  and  Paris  expresses  the 
world. 

For  Paris  is  a  total.  Paris  is  the  ceiling  of  the  human  race. 
The  whole  of  this  prodigious  city  is  a  foreshortening  of  dead 
manners  and  living  manners.  He  who  sees  Paris  thinks  he 
sees  the  bottom  of  all  history  with  heaven  and  constellations 
in  the  intervals.  Paris  has  a  capital,  the  Town-Hall,  a 
Parthenon,  Notre-Dame,  a  Mount  Avcntine,  the  Faubourg 
Saint-Antoine,  an  Asinarium,  the  Sorbonne,  a  Pantheon,  the 
Pantheon,  a  Via  Sacra,  the  Boulevard  des  Ttaliens,  a  temple 
of  the  winds,  opinion;  and  it  replaces  the  Gemoniae  by  ridi- 
cule. Its  majo  is  called  "faraud,"  its  Transteverin  is  the 


16  MARIU8 

man  of  the  faubourgs,  its  hammal  is  the  market-porter,  its 
lazzarone  is  the  pegre,  its  cockney  is  the  native  of  Ghent. 
Everything  that  exists  elsewhere  exists  at  Paris.  The  fish- 
woman  of  Dumarsais  can  retort  on  the  herb-seller  of  Euripi- 
des, the  discobols  Vejanus  lives  again  in  the  Forioso,  the 
tight-rope  dancer.  Therapontigonus  Miles  could  walk  arm  in 
arm  with  Vadeboncoeur  the  grenadier,  Damasippus  the  second- 
hand dealer  would  be  happy  among  bric-a-brac  merchants, 
Vincennes  could  grasp  Socrates  in  its  fist  as  just  as  Agora 
could  imprison  Diderot,  Grimod  de  la  Reyniere  discovered 
larded  roast  beef,  as  Curtillus  invented  roast  hedgehog,  we 
see  the  trapeze  which  figures  in  Plautus  reappear  under  the 
vault  of  the  Arc  of  1'Etoile,  the  sword-eater  of  Poecilus 
encountered  by  Apuleius  is  a  sword-swallower  on  the  Pont- 
Neuf,  the  nephew  of  Rameau  and  Curculio  the  parasite  make 
a  pair.  Ergasilus  could  get  himself  presented  to  Cambaceres  by 
d'Aigrefeuille ;  the  four  dandies  of  Rome:  Alcesimarchus, 
Phcedromus,  Diabolus,  and  Argyrippus,  descend  from  Cour- 
tille  in  Labatut's  posting-chaise ;  Aulus  Gellius  would  halt  no 
longer  in  front  of  Congrio  than  would  Charles  Nodier  in  front 
of  Punchinello ;  Marto  is  not  a  tigress,  but  Pardalisca  was  not 
a  dragon;  Pantolabus  the  Wag  jeers  in  the  Cafe  Anglais  at 
Nomentanus  the  fast  liver,  Hermogenus  is  a  tenor  in  the 
Champs-Elysees,  and  round  him,  Thracius  the  beggar,  clad 
like  Bobeche,  takes  up  a  collection;  the  bore  who  stops  you 
by  the  button  of  your  coat  in  the  Tuileries  makes  you  repeat 
after  a  lapse  of  two  thousand  years  Thesprion's  apostrophe : 
Quis  properantem  me  prehendit  pallio?  The  winaon  Surene 
is  a  parody  of  the  wine  of  Alba,  the  red  border  of  Desaugiers 
forms  a  balance  to  the  great  cutting  of  Balatro,  Pere  Lachaise 
exhales  beneath  nocturnal  rains  same  gleams  as  the  Esquiliae, 
and  the  grave  of  the  poor  bought  for  five  years,  is  certainly 
the  equivalent  of  the  slave's  hived  coffin. 

Seek  something  that  Paris  has  not.  The  vat  of  Trophonius 
contains  nothing  that  is  not  in  Mesmer's  tub;  Ergaphilas 
lives  again  in  Cagliostro;  the  Brahmin  Vasaphanta  become 
incarnate  in  the  Comte  de  Saint-Germain;  the  cemetery  of 


PARIS  STUDIED  IN  ITS  ATOM  17 

Saint-Medard  works  quite  as  good  miracles  as  the  Mosque  of 
Oumoumie  at  Damascus. 

Paris  has  an  yEsop-Mayeux,  and  a  Canidia,  Mademoiselle 
Lenormand.  It  is  terrified,  like  Delphos  at  the  fulgurating 
realities  of  the  vision;  it  makes  tables  turn  as  Dodona  did 
tripods.  It  places  the  grisette  on  the  throne,  as  Rome  placed 
the  courtesan  there;  and,  taking  it  altogether,  if  Louis  XV. 
is  worse  than  Claudian,  Madame  Dubarry  is  better  than  Mes- 
salina.  Paris  combines  in  an  unprecedented  type,  which  has 
existed  and  which  we  have  elbowed,  Grecian  nudity,  the 
Hebraic  ulcer,  and  the  Gascon  pun.  It  mingles  Diogenes, 
Job,  and  Jack-pudding,  dresses  up  a  spectre  in  old  numbers  of 
the  Constitutional,  and  makes  Chodruc  Duclos. 

Although  Plutarch  says :  the  tyrant  never  grows  old,  Rome, 
under  Sylla  as  under  Domitian,  resigned  itself  and  willingly 
put  water  in  its  wine.  The  Tiber  was  a  Lethe,  if  the  rather 
doctrinary  eulogium  made  of  it  by  Varus  Vibiscus  is  to  be 
credited:  Contra  Oracchos  Tiberim  habcmus,  Bibere  Tibcrim, 
id  est  seditionem  oblivisci.  Paris  drinks  a  million  litres  of 
water  a  day,  but  that  does  not  prevent  it  from  occasionally 
beating  the  general  alarm  and  ringing  the  tocsin. 

With  that  exception,  Paris  is  amiable.  It  accepts  every- 
thing royally ;  it  is  not  too  particular  about  its  Venus ;  its 
Callipyge  is  Hottentot;  provided  that  it  is  made  to  laugh,  it 
condones ;  ugliness  cheers  it,  deformity  provokes  it  to  laughter, 
vice  diverts  it;  be  eccentric  and  you  may  be  an  eccentric;  even 
hypocrisy,  that  supreme  cynicism,  does  not  disgust  it ;  it  is  so 
literary  that  it  does  not  hold  its  nose  before  Basilo,  and  is  no 
more  scandalized  by  the  prayer  of  Tartuffe  than  Horace  was 
repelled  by  the  "hiccup"  of  Priapus.  No  trait  of  the  uni- 
versal face  is  lacking  in  the  profile  of  Paris.  The  bal  Mabile 
is  not  the  polymnia  dance  of  the  Janiculum,  but  the  dealer  in 
ladies'  wearing  apparel  there  devours  the  lorette  with  her  eyes, 
exactly  as  the  procuress  Staphyla  lay  in  wait  for  the  virgin 
Planesium.  The  Barriere  du  Combat  is  not  the  Coliseum,  but 
people  are  as  ferocious  there  as  though  Ca>sar  were  looking  on. 
The  Syrian  hostess  has  more  grace  than  Mother  Saguet,  but, 


jg  MARIU8 

if  Virgil  haunted  the  Roman  wine-shop,  David  d' Angers, 
Balzac  and  Charlet  have  sat  at  the  tables  of  Parisian  taverns. 
Paris  reigns.  Geniuses  flash  forth  there,  the  red  tails  prosper 
there.  Adona'i  passes  on  his  chariot  with  its  twelve  wheels  of 
thunder  and  lightning;  Silenus  makes  his  entry  there  on  his 
ass.  For  Silenus  read  Ramponneau. 

Paris  is  the  synonym  of  Cosmos,  Paris  is  Athens,  Sybaris, 
Jerusalem.  Pantin.  All  civilizations  are  there  in  an  abridged 
form,  all  barbarisms  also.  Paris  would  greatly  regret  it  if  it 
had  not  a  guillotine. 

A  little  of  the  Place  de  Greve  is  a  good  thing.  What  would 
all  that  eternal  festival  be  without  this  seasoning?  Our  laws 
are  wisely  provided,  and  thanks  to  them,  this  blade  drips  on 
this  Shrove  Tuesday. 

CHAPTER   XI 

TO    SCOFF,   TO    REIGN 

THERE  is  no  limit  to  Paris.  No  city  has  had  that  domina- 
tion which  sometimes  derides  those  whom  it  subjugates.  To 
please  you,  0  Athenians !  exclaimed  Alexander.  Paris  makes 
more  than  the  law,  it  makes  the  fashion ;  Paris  sets  more  than 
the  fashion,  it  sets  the  routine.  Paris  may  be  stupid,  if  it  sees 
fit;  it  sometimes  allows  itself  this  luxury;  then  the  universe  is 
stupid  in  company  with  it;  then  Paris  awakes,  rubs  its  eyes, 
says :  "How  stupid  I  am !"  and  bursts  out  laughing  in  the 
face  of  the  human  race.  What  a  marvel  is  such  a  city !  it  is 
a  strange  thing  that  this  grandioseness  and  this  burlesque 
should  be  amicable  neighbors,  that  all  this  majesty  should  not 
be  thrown  into  disorder  by  all  this  parody,  and  that  the  same 
mouth  can  to-day  blow  into  the  trump  of  the  Judgment  Day, 
and  to-morrow  into  the  reed-flute !  Paris  has  a  sovereign 
joviality.  Its  gayety  is  of  the  thunder  and  its  farce  holds  a 
sceptre. 

Its  tempest  sometimes  proceeds  from  a  grimace.  Its  ex- 
plosions, its  days,  its  masterpieces,  its  prodigies,  its  epics,  go 


PA  If  IK  STUDIED  IN  ITK  ATOM  19 

forth  to  the  bounds  of  the  universe,  and  so  also  do  its  cock-and- 
bull  stories.  Its  laugh  is  the  mouth  of  a  volcano  which  spatters 
the  whole  earth.  Its  jests  are  sparks.  It  imposes  its  carica- 
tures as  well  as  its  ideal  on  people;  the  highest  monuments  of 
human  civilization  accept  its  ironies  and  lend  their  eternity  to 
its  mischievous  pranks.  It  is  superb;  it  has  a  prodigious  14th 
of  July,  which  delivers  the  globe;  it  forces  all  nations  to  take 
the  oath  of  tennis ;  its  night  of  the  4th  of  August  dissolves  in 
three  hours  a  thousand  years  of  feudalism ;  it  makes  of  its  logic 
the  muscle  of  unanimous  will ;  it  multiplies  itself  under  all 
sorts  of  forms  of  the  sublime;  it  fills  with  its  light  Washington, 
Kosciusko,  Bolivar,  Bozzaris,  Riego,  Bern,  Manin,  Lopez,  John 
Brown,  Garibaldi;  it  is  everywhere  where  the  future  is  being 
lighted  up,  at  Boston  in  1779,  at  the  Isle  de  Leon  in  1820,  at 
Pesth  in  1848,  at  Palermo  in  1860,  it  whispers  the  mighty 
countersign :  Liberty,  in  the  ear  of  the  American  abolitionists 
grouped  about  the  boat  at  Harper's  Ferry,  and  in  the  ear  of 
the  patriots  of  Ancona  assembled  in  the  shadow,  to  the  Archi 
before  the  Gozzi  inn  on  the  seashore;  it  creates  Canaris;  it 
creates  Quiroga;  it  creates  Pisacane;  it  irradiates  the  great 
on  earth ;  it  was  while  proceeding  whither  its  breath  urge  them, 
that  Byron  perished  at  Missolonghi,  and  that  Mazet  died  at 
Barcelona;  it  is  the  tribune  under  the  feet  of  Mirabeau,  and  a 
crater  under  the  feet  of  Robespierre;  its  books,  its  theatre,  its 
art,  its  science,  its  literature,  its  philosophy,  are  the  manuals 
of  the  human  race;  it  has  Pascal,  Regnier,  Corneille,  Descartes, 
Jean- Jacques:  Voltaire  for  all  moments,  Moliere  for  all  cen- 
turies; it  makes  its  language  to  be  talked  by  the  universal 
mouth,  and  that  language  becomes  the  word;  it  constructs  in 
all  minds  the  idea  of  progress,  the  liberating  dogmas  which  it 
forges  are  for  the  generations  trusty  friends,  and  it  is  with 
the  soul  of  its  thinkers  and  its  poets  that  all  heroes  of  all 
nations  have  been  made  since  1 789  ;  this  does  not  prevent  vaga- 
bondism, and  that  enormous  genius  which  is  called  Paris, 
while  transfiguring  the  world  by  its  light,  sketches  in  charcoal 
Bouginier's  nose  on  the  wall  of  the  temple  of  Theseus  and 
writes  Crcdcvillc  the  thief  on  the  Pyramids. 


20  MARIVB 

Paris  is  always  showing  its  teeth ;  when  it  is  not  scolding  it 
is  laughing. 

Such  is  Paris.  The  smoke  of  its  roofs  forms  the  ideas  of  the 
universe.  A  heap  of  mud  and  stone,  if  you  will,  but,  above  all, 
a  moral  being.  It  is  more  than  great,  it  is  immense.  Why? 
Because  it  is  daring. 

To  dare ;  that  is  the  price  of  progress. 

All  sublime  conquests  are,  more  or  less,  the  prizes  of  daring. 
In  order  that  the  Revolution  should  take  place,  it  does  not  suf- 
fice that  Montesquieu  should  foresee  it,  that  Diderot  should 
preach  it,  that  Beaumarchais  should  announce  it,  that  Con- 
dorcet  should  calculate  it,  that  Arouet  should  prepare  it,  that 
Rousseau  should  premeditate  it;  it  is  necessary  that  Danton 
should  dare  it. 

The  cry:  Audacity!  is  a  Fiat  lux.  It  is  necessary,  for  the 
sake  of  the  forward  march  of  the  human  race,  that  there 
should  be  proud  lessons  of  courage  permanently  on  the  heights. 
Daring  deeds  dazzle  history  and  are  one  of  man's  great  sources 
of  light.  The  dawn  dares  when  it  rises.  To  attempt,  to  brave, 
to  persist,  to  persevere,  to  be  faithful  to  one's  self,  to  grasp 
fate  bodily,  to  astound  catastrophe  by  the  small  amount  of  fear 
that  it  occasions  us,  now  to  affront  unjust  power,  again  to 
insult  drunken  victory,  to  hold  one's  position,  to  stand  one's 
ground;  that  is  the  example  which  nations  need,  that  is  the 
light  which  electrifies  them.  The  same  formidable  lightning 
proceeds  from  the  torch  of  Prometheus  to  Cambronne's  short 
pipe. 

CHAPTER   XII 

THE    FUTURE    LATENT    IN    THE    PEOPLE 

As  for  the  Parisian  populace,  even  when  a  man  grown,  it  is 
always  the  street  Arab;  to  paint  the  child  is  to  paint  the  city; 
and  it  is  for  that  reason  that  we  have  studied  this  eagle  in  this 
arrant  sparrow.  It  is  in  the  faubourgs,  above  all,  we  maintain, 
that  the  Parisian  race  appears;  there  is  the  pure  blood;  there 
is  the  true  physiognomy;  there  this  people  toils  and  suffers, 


PARIS  STUDIED  IN  ITS  ATOM  21 

and  suffering  and  toil  are  the  two  faces  of  man.  There  exist 
there  immense  numbers  of  unknown  beings,  among  whom 
swarm  types  of  the  strangest,  from  the  porter  of  la  Rapee  to 
the  knacker  of  Montfaucon.  Fex  urbis,  exclaims  Cicero:  mob, 
adds  Burke,  indignantly;  rabble,  multitude,  populace.  These 
are  words  and  quickly  uttered.  But  so  be  it.  What  does  it 
matter?  What  is  it  to  me  if  they  do  go  barefoot !  They  do  not 
know  how  to  read ;  so  much  the  worse.  Would  you  abandon 
them  for  that?  Would  you  turn  their  distress  into  a  maledic- 
tion ?  Cannot  the  light  penetrate  these  masses  ?  Let  us  return 
to  that  cry :  Light !  and  let  us  obstinately  persist  therein ! 
Light!  Light!  Who  knows  whether  these  opacities  will  not 
become  transparent?  Are  not  revolutions  transfigurations? 
Come,  philosophers,  teach,  enlighten,  light  up,  think  aloud, 
speak  aloud,  hasten  joyously  to  the  great  sun,  fraternize  with 
the  public  place,  announce  the  good  news,  spend  your  alpha- 
bets lavishly,  proclaim  rights,  sing  the  Marseillaises,  sow 
enthusiasms,  tear  green  boughs  from  the  oaks.  Make  a  whirl- 
wind of  the  idea.  This  crowd  may  be  rendered  sublime.  Let 
us  learn  how  to  make  use  of  that  vast  conflagration  of  princi- 
ples and  virtues,  which  sparkles,  bursts  forth  and  quivers  at 
certain  hours.  These  bare  feet,  these  bare  arms,  these  rags, 
these  ignorances,  these  abjectnesses,  these  darknesses,  may  be 
employed  in  the  conquest  of  the  ideal.  Gaze  past  the  people, 
and  you  will  perceive  truth.  Let  that  vile  sand  which  you 
trample  under  foot  be  cast  into  the  furnace,  let  it  melt  and 
seethe  there,  it  will  become  a  splendid  crystal,  and  it  is  thanks 
to  it  that  Galileo  and  Newton  will  discover  stars. 


CHAPTER   XIII 

LITTLE    GAVROCHE 

EIGHT  or  nine  years  after  the  events  narrated  in  the  second 
part  of  this  story,  people  noticed  on  the  Boulevard  du  Temple, 
and  in  the  regions  of  the  Chatcau-d'Eau,  a  little  boy  eleven  or 
twelve  years  of  age,  who  would  have  realized  with  tolerable 


22  MARIUS 

accuracy  that  ideal  of  the  gamin  sketched  out  above,  if,  with 
the  laugh  of  his  age  on  his  lips,  he  had  not  had  a  heart  abso- 
lutely sombre  and  empty.  This  child  was  well  muffled  up  in  a 
pair  of  man's  trousers,  but  he  did  not  get  them  from  his  father, 
and  a  woman's  chemise,  but  he  did  not  get  it  from  his  mother. 
Some  people  or  other  had  clothed  him  in  rags  out  of  charity. 
Still,  he  had  a  father  and  a  mother.  But  his  father  did  not 
think  of  him,  and  his  mother  did  not  love  him. 

He  was  one  of  those  children  most  deserving  of  pity,  among 
all,  one  of  those  who  have  father  and  mother,  and  who  are 
orphans  nevertheless. 

This  child  never  felt  so  well  as  when  he  was  in  the  street. 
The  pavements  were  less  hard  to  him  than  his  mother's  heart. 

His  parents  had  despatched  him  into  life  with  a  kick. 

He  simply  took  flight. 

He  was  a  boisterous,  pallid,  nimble,  wide-awake,  jeering, 
lad,  with  a  vivacious  but  sickly  air.  He  went  and  came,  sang, 
played  at  hopscotch,  scraped  the  gutters,  stole  a  little,  but,  like 
cats  and  sparrows,  gayly  laughed  when  he  was  called  a  rogue, 
and  got  angry  when  called  a  thief.  He  had  no  shelter,  no 
bread,  no  fire,  no  love;  but  he  was  merry  because  he  was  free. 

When  these  poor  creatures  grow  to  be  men,  the  millstones  of 
the  social  order  meet  them  and  crush  them,  but  so  long  as  they 
are  children,  they  escape  because  of  their  smallness.  The 
tiniest  hole  saves  them. 

Nevertheless,  abandoned  as  this  child  was,  it  sometimes  hap- 
pened, every  two  or  three  months,  that  he  said,  "Come,  I'll  go 
and  see  mamma !"  Then  he  quitted  the  boulevard,  the  Cirque, 
the  Porte  Saint-Martin,  descended  to  the  quays,  crossed  the 
bridges,  reached  the  suburbs,  arrived  at  the  Salpotriere,  and 
came  to  a  halt,  where?  Precisely  at  that  double  number  50-52 
with  which  the  reader  is  acquainted — at  the  Gorbeau  hovel. 

At  that  epoch,  the  hovel  50-52  generally  deserted  and  eter- 
nally decorated  with  the  placard :  "Chambers  to  let,"  chanced 
to  be,  a  rare  thing,  inhabited  by  numerous  individuals  who, 
however,  as  is  always  the  case  in  Paris,  had  no  connection  with 
each  other.  All  belonged  to  that  indigent  class  which  begins  to 


PAItIS  STUDIED  IN  ITR  ATOM  23 

separate  from  the  lowest  of  petty  bourgeoisie  in  straitened  cir- 
cumstances, and  which  extends  from  misery  to  misery  into  the 
lowest  depths  of  society  down  to  those  two  beings  in  whom  all 
the  material  things  of  civilization  end,  the  sewer-man  who 
sweeps  up  the  mud,  and  the  ragpicker  who  collects  scraps. 

The  "principal  lodger"  of  Jean  Valjean's  day  was  dead  and 
had  been  replaced  by  another  exactly  like  her.  I  know  not 
what  philosopher  has  said  :  "Old  women  are  never  lacking." 

This  new  old  woman  was  named  Madame  Bourgon,  and  had 
nothing  remarkable  about  her  life  except  a  dynasty  of  three 
paroquets,  who  had  reigned  in  succession  over  her  soul. 

The  most  miserable  of  those  who  inhabited  the  hovel  were  a 
family  of  four  persons,  consisting  of  father,  mother,  and  two 
daughters,  already  well  grown,  all  four  of  whom  were  lodged  in 
the  same  attic,  one  of  the  cells  which  we  have  already  men- 
tioned. 

At  first  sight,  this  family  presented  no  very  special  feature 
except  its  extreme  destitution;  the  father,  when  he  hired  the 
chamber,  had  stated  that  his  name  was  Jondrette.  Some  time 
after  his  moving  in,  which  had  borne  a  singular  resemblance  to 
the  entrance  of  nothing  at  all,  to  borrow  the  memorable  expres- 
sion of  the  principal  tenant,  this  Jondrette  had  said  to  the 
woman,  who,  like  her  predecessor,  was  at  the  same  time  por- 
tress and  stair-sweeper :  "Mother  So-and-So,  if  any  one  should 
chance  to  come  and  inquire  for  a  Pole  or  an  Italian,  or  even 
a  Spaniard,  perchance,  it  is  I." 

This  family  was  that  of  the  merry  barefoot  boy.  He  arrived 
there  and  found  distress,  and,  what  is  still  sadder,  no  smile ;  a 
cold  hearth  and  cold  hearts.  When  he  entered,  he  was  asked : 
"Whence  come  you?"  He  replied:  "From  the  street."  When 
he  went  away,  they  asked  him:  "Whither  are  you  going?" 
He  replied:  "Into  the  streets."  His  mother  said  to  him: 
"What  did  you  come  here  for?'' 

This  child  lived,  in  this  absence  of  affection,  like  the  pale 
plants  which  spring  up  in  cellars.  It  did  not  cause  him  suffer- 
ing, and  he  blamed  no  one.  He  did  not  know  exactly  how  a 
father  and  mother  should  be. 


24  MARIU8 

Nevertheless,  his  mother  loved  his  sisters. 

We  have  forgotten  to  mention,  that  on  the  Boulevard  du 
Temple  this  child  was  called  Little  Gavroche.  Why  was  he 
called  Little  Gavroche? 

Probably  because  his  father's  name  was  Jondrette. 

It  seems  to  be  the  instinct  of  certain  wretched  families  to 
break  the  thread. 

The  chamber  which  the  Jondrettes  inhabited  in  the  Gorbeau 
hovel  was  the  last  at  the  end  of  the  corridor.  The  cell  next  to 
it  was  occupied  by  a  very  poor  young  man  who  was  called  M. 
Marius. 

Let  us  explain  who  this  M.  Marius  was. 


BOOK    SECOND.— THE    GREAT    BOURGEOIS 
CHAPTER    I 

NINETY  YEARS   AND   THIRTY-TWO   TEETH 

IN  the  Rue  Boucherat,  Rue  de  Normandie,  and  the  Rue  de 
Saintonge  there  still  exist  a  few  ancient  inhabitants  who  have 
preserved  the  memory  of  a  worthy  man  named  M.  Gillenor- 
mand,  and  who  mention  him  with  complaisance.  This  good 
man  was  old  when  they  were  young.  This  silhouette  has  not 
yet  entirely  disappeared — for  those  who  regard  with  melan- 
choly that  vague  swarm  of  shadows  which  is  called  the  past — 
from  the  labyrinth  of  streets  in  the  vicinity  of  the  Temple  to 
which,  under  Louis  XIV.,  the  names  of  all  the  provinces  of 
France  were  appended  exactly  as  in  our  day,  the  streets  of  the 
new  Tivoli  quarter  have  received  the  names  of  all  the  capitals 
of  Europe;  a  progression,  by  the  way,  in  which  progress  is 
visible. 

M.  Gillenormand,  who  was  as  much  alive  as  possible  in  1831, 
was  one  of  those  men  who  had  become  curiosities  to  be  viewed, 
simply  because  they  have  lived  a  long  time,  and  who  are 
strange  because  they  formerly  resembled  everybody,  and  now 
resemble  nobody.  He  was  a  peculiar  old  man,  and  in  very 
truth,  a  man  of  another  age,  the  real,  complete  and  rather 
haughty  bourgeois  of  the  eighteenth  century,  who  wore  his 
good,  old  bourgeoisie  with  the  air  with  which  marquises  wear 
their  marquisates.  He  was  over  ninety  years  of  age,  his  walk 
was  erect,  he  talked  loudly,  saw  clearly,  drank  neat,  ate,  slept, 
and  snored.  He  had  all  thirty-two  of  his  teeth.  He  only  wore 
spectacles  when  he  read.  He  was  of  an  amorous  disposition, 
but  declared  that,  for  the  last  ten  years,  he  had  wholly  and  de- 


26  MAPIU8 

cidedly  renounced  women.  He  could  no  longer  please,  he  said ; 
he  did  not  add  :  "I  am  too  old,"  but :  "I  am  too  poor."  He  said  : 
"If  I  were  not  ruined — Heec!"'  All  he  had  left,  in  fact,  was 
an  income  of  about  fifteen  thousand  francs.  His  dream  was  to 
come  into  an  inheritance  and  to  have  a  hundred  thousand  livres 
income  for  mistresses.  He  did  not  belong,  as  the  reader  will 
perceive,  to  that  puny  variety  of  octogenaries  who,  like  M.  do 
Voltaire,  have  been  dying  all  their  life;  his  was  no  longevity  of 
a  cracked  pot;  this  jovial  old  man  had  always  had  good  health. 
He  was  superficial,  rapid,  easily  angered.  He  flew  into  a  pas- 
sion at  everything,  generally  quite  contrary  to  all  reason. 
When  contradicted,  he  raised  his  cane;  he  beat  people  as  he 
had  done  in  the  great  century.  He  had  a  daughter  over  fifty 
years  of  age,  and  unmarried,  whom  he  chastised  severely  with 
his  tongue,  when  in  a  rage,  and  whom  he  would  have  liked  to 
whip.  She  seemed  to  him  to  be  eight  years  old.  He  boxed  his 
servants'  ears  soundly,  and  said :  "Ah  !  carogne  !"  One  of  his 
oaths  was :  "By  the  pantoufloche  of  the  pantouflochade !"  He 
had  singular  freaks  of  tranquillity;  he  had  himself  shaved 
every  day  by  a  barber  who  had  been  mad  and  who  detested 
him,  being  jealous  of  M.  Gillenormand  on  account  of  his  wife, 
a  pretty  and  coquettish  barberess.  M.  Gillenormand  admired 
his  own  discernment  in  all  things,  and  declared  that  he  was 
extremely  sagacious;  here  is  one  of  his  sayings:  "I  have,  in 
truth,  some  penetration;  I  am  able  to  say  when  a  flea  bites 
me,  from  what  woman  it  came." 

The  words  which  he  uttered  the  most  frequently  were :  the 
sensible  man,  and  nature.  He  did  not  give  to  this  last  word 
the  grand  acceptation  which  our  epoch  has  accorded  to  it,  but 
he  made  it  enter,  after  his  own  fashion,  into  his  little  chimney- 
corner  satires:  "Nature,"  he  said,  "in  order  that  civilization 
may  have  a  little  of  everything,  gives  it  even  specimens  of  its 
amusing  barbarism.  Europe  possesses  specimens  of  Asia  and 
Africa  on  a  small  scale.  The  cat  is  a  drawing-room  tiger,  the 
lizard  is  a  pocket  crocodile.  The  dancers  at  the  opera  arc  pink 
female  savages.  They  do  not  eat  men,  they  crunch  them ;  or, 
magicians  that  they  are,  they  transform  them  into  oysters  and 


THE  GREAT  BOL'KUEOIS  27 

swallow  them.  The  Caribbcans  leave  only  the  bones,  they 
leave  only  the  shell.  Such  are  our  morals.  We  do  not  devour, 
we  gnaw;  we  do  not  exterminate,  we  claw." 


CHAPTER   II 

LIKE  MASTER,   LIKE   HOUSE 

HE  lived  in  the  Marais,  Hue  des  Filles-du-Calvaire,  No.  6. 
He  owned  the  house.  This  house  has  since  been  demolished 
and  rebuilt,  and  the  number  has  probably  been  changed  in 
those  revolutions  of  numeration  which  the  streets  of  Paris 
undergo.  He  occupied  an  ancient  and  vast  apartment  on  the 
first  floor,  between  street  and  gardens,  furnished  to  the  very 
ceilings  with  great  Gobelins  and  Beauvais  tapestries  represent- 
ing pastoral  scenes ;  the  subjects  of  the  ceilings  and  the  panels 
were  repeated  in  miniature  on  the  arm-chairs.  He  enveloped 
his  bed  in  a  vast,  nine-leaved  screen  of  Coromandel  lacquer. 
Long,  full  curtains  hung  from  the  windows,  and  formed  great, 
broken  folds  that  were  very  magnificent.  The  garden  situ- 
ated immediately  under  his  windows  was  attached  to  that  one 
of  them  which  formed  the  angle,  by  means  of  a  staircase 
twelve  or  fifteen  steps  long,  which  the  old  gentleman 
ascended  and  descended  with  great  agility.  In  addition  to  a 
library  adjoining  his  chamber,  he  had  a  boudoir  of  which  he 
thought  a  great  deal,  a  gallant  and  elegant  retreat,  with 
magnificent  hangings  of  straw,  with  a  pattern  of  flowers  and 
fleurs-de-lys  made  on  the  galleys  of  Louis  XIV.  and  ordered 
of  his  convicts  by  M.  do  Vivonne  for  his  mistress.  M.  Gille- 
normand  had  inherited  it  from  a  grim  maternal  great-aunt, 
who  had  died  a  centenarian.  He  had  had  two  wives.  His 
manners  were  something  between  those  of  the  courtier,  which 
he  had  never  been,  and  the  lawyer,  which  he  might  have  been. 
He  was  gay,  and  caressing  when  he  had  a  mind.  In  his  youth 
he  had  been  one  of  those  men  who  are  always  deceived  by  their 
wives  and  never  by  their  mistresses,  because  they  are,  at  the 
same  time,  the  most  sullen  of  husbands  and  the  most  charming 


28  MARIVS 

of  lovers  in  existence.  He  was  a  connoisseur  of  painting.  He 
had  in  his  chamber  a  marvellous  portrait  of  no  one  knows 
whom,  painted  by  Jordacns,  executed  with  groat  dashes  of  the 
brush,  with  millions  of  details,  in  a  confused  and  hap-hazard 
manner.  M.  Gillenormand's  attire  was  not  the  habit  of  Louis 
XIV.  nor  yet  that  of  Louis  XVI. ;  it  was  that  of  the  Incroy- 
ables  of  the  Directory.  He  had  thought  himself  young  up  to 
that  period  and  had  followed  the  fashions.  His  coat  was  of 
light-weight  cloth  with  voluminous  n-vers,  a  long  swallow-tail 
and  large  steel  buttons.  With  this  he  wore  knee-breeches  and 
buckle  shoes.  He  always  thrust  his  hands  into  his  fobs,  lie 
said  authoritatively:  "The  French  Revolution  is  a  heap  of 
blackguards." 

CHAPTER    III 

LUC-ESPRIT 

AT  the  age  of  sixteen,  one  evening  at  the  opera,  he  had  had 
the  honor  to  be  stared  at  through  opera-glasses  by  two  beauties 
at  the  same  time — ripe  and  celebrated  beauties  then,  and  sung 
by  Voltaire,  the  Camargo  and  the  ->alle.  Caught  between  two 
fires,  he  had  beaten  a  heroic  retreat  towards  a  little  dancer,  a 
young  girl  named  Xahenry,  who  was  sixteen  like  himself, 
obscure  as  a  cat,  and  with  whom  he  was  in  love.  He  abounded 
in  memories.  He  was  accustomed  to  exclaim:  "How  pretty 
she  was — that  Guimard-Guimardini-Guimardinette,  the  last 
time  I  saw  her  at  Longchamps.  her  hair  curled  in  sustained 
sentiments,  with  her  come-and-see  of  turquoises,  her  gown  of 
the  color  of  persons  newly  arrived,  and  her  little  agitation 
muff!"  He  had  worn  in  his  young  manhood  a  waistcoat  of 
Nain-Londrin,  which  he  was  fond  of  talking  about  effusively. 
"I  was  dressed  like  a  Turk  of  the  Levant  Levantin,"  said  he. 
Madame  de  Boufflers,  having  seen  him  by  chance  when  he  was 
twenty,  had  described  him  as  "a  charming  fool."  lie  was 
horrified  by  all  the  names  which  he  saw  in  politics  and  in 
power,  regarding  them  as  vulgar  and  bourgeois.  lie  read  the 
journals,  the  newspapers,  the  gazettes  as  he  said,  stifling  out- 


THK  (IRK AT  BOURGKOI8  20 

bursts  of  laughter  the  while.  "Oh !"  he  said,  "what  people 
these  are  !  Corbiere  !  Ilumann  !  Casimir  Perier  !  There's  a 
minister  for  you!  I  can  imagine  this  in  a  journal :  'M.  Gille- 
norman,  minister  !'  that  would  be  a  farce.  Well !  They  are  so 
stupid  that  it  would  pass";  he  merrily  called  everything  by  its 
name,  whether  decent  or  indecent,  and  did  not  restrain  him- 
self in  the  least  before  ladies.  He  uttered  coarse  speeches, 
obscenities,  and  filth  with  a  certain  tranquillity  and  lack  of 
astonishment  which  was  elegant.  It  was  in  keeping  with  the 
unceremoniousness  of  his  century.  It  is  to  be  noted  that  the 
age  of  periphrase  in  verse  was  the  age  of  crudities  in  prose. 
His  god-father  had  predicted  that  he  would  turn  out  a  man 
of  genius,  and  had  bestowed  on  him  these  two  significant 
names:  Luc-Esprit. 

CHAPTER    IV 

A   CENTENARIAN    ASPIRANT 

HE  had  taken  prizes  in  his  boyhood  at  the  College  of  Mou- 
lins,  where  he  was  born,  and  he  had  been  crowned  by  the  hand 
of  the  Due  de  Nivernais,  whom  he  called  the  Due  de  Nevers. 
Neither  the  Convention,  nor  the  death  of  Louis  XVI.,  nor  the 
Napoleon,  nor  the  return  of  the  Bourbons,  nor  anything  else 
had  been  able  to  efface  the  memory  of  this  crowning.  The 
Due  de  Nevers  was,  in  his  eyes,  the  great  figure  of  the  century. 
"What  a  charming  grand  seigneur,"  he  said,  "and  what  a  fine 
air  lie  had  with  his  blue  ribbon  !" 

In  the  eyes  of  M.  Gillenormand,  Catherine  the  Second  had 
made  reparation  for  the  crime  of  the  partition  of  Poland  by 
purchasing,  for  three  thousand  roubles,  the  secret  of  the  elixir 
of  gold,  from  Bestucheff.  He  grew  animated  on  this  subject : 
"The  elixir  of  gold,"  ho  exclaimed,  "the  yellow  dye  of  Bestu- 
cheff, General  Lamotte's  drops,  in  the  eighteenth  century, — 
this  was  tho  great  remedy  for  the  catastrophes  of  love,  the  pan- 
acea against  Venus,  at  one  louis  the  half-ounce  phial.  Louis 
XV.  sent  two  hundred  phials  of  it  to  the  Pope."  He  would 
have  been  greatly  irritated  and  thrown  off  his  balance,  had 


30  MARIU8 

any  one  told  him  that  the  elixir  of  gold  is  nothing  but  the 
perchloride  of  iron.  M.  Gillenormand  adored  the  Bourbons, 
and  had  a  horror  of  1789;  he  was  forever  narrating  in  what 
manner  he  had  saved  himself  during  the  Terror,  and  how  he 
had  been  obliged  to  display  a  vast  deal  of  gayety  and  clever- 
ness in  order  to  escape  having  his  head  cut  off.  If  any  young 
man  ventured  to  pronounce  an  eulogium  on  the  Republic  in 
his  presence,  he  turned  purple  and  grew  so  angry  that  he 
was  on  the  point  of  swooning.  He  sometimes  alluded  to  his 
ninety  years,  and  said,  "I  hope  that  I  shall  not  see  ninety- 
three  twice."  On  these  occasions,  he  hinted  to  people  that  he 
meant  to  live  to  be  a  hundred. 


CHAPTER    V 

BASQUE  AND  NICOLETTE 

HE  had  theories.  Here  is  one  of  them:  "When  a  man  is 
passionately  fond  of  women,  and  when  he  has  himself  a  wife 
for  whom  he  cares  but  little,  who  is  homely,  cross,  legitimate, 
with  plenty  of  rights,  perched  on  the  code,  and  jealous  at  need, 
there  is  but  one  way  of  extricating  himself  from  the  quandry 
and  of  procuring  peace,  and  that  is  to  let  his  wife  control  the 
purse-strings.  This  abdication  sets  him  free.  Then  his  wife 
busies  herself,  grows  passionately  fond  of  handling  coin,  gets 
her  fingers  covered  with  verdigris  in  the  process,  undertakes 
the  education  of  half-share  tenants  and  the  training  of  farm- 
ers, convokes  lawyers,  presides  over  notaries,  harangues 
scriveners,  visits  limbs  of  the  law,  follows  lawsuits,  draws  up 
leases,  dictates  contracts,  feels  herself  the  sovereign,  sells, 
buys,  regulates,  promises  and  compromises,  binds  fast  and 
annuls,  yields,  concedes  and  retrocedes,  arranges,  disarranges, 
hoards,  lavishes;  she  commits  follies,  a  supreme  and  personal 
delight,  and  that  consoles  her.  While  her  husband  disdains 
her,  she  has  the  satisfaction  of  ruining  her  husband."  This 
theory  M.  Gillenormand  had  himself  applied,  and  it  had 
become  his  history.  His  wife — the  second  one — had  admin- 


THE  ORE  AT  BOURGEOIS  31 

istered  his  fortune  in  such  a  manner  that,  one  fine  day,  when 
M.  Gillenormand  found  himself  a  widower,  there  remained  to 
him  just  sufficient  to  live  on.  by  sinking  nearly  the  whole  of 
i'.  in  an  annuity  of  fifteen  thousand  francs,  three-quarters  of 
which  would  expire  with  him.  He  had  not  hesitated  on  this 
point,  not  being  anxious  to  leave  a  property  behind  him. 
Besides,  he  had  noticed  that  patrimonies  are  subject  to 
adventures,  and,  for  instance,  become  national  property;  he 
had  been  present  at  the  avatars  of  consolidated  three  per  cents, 
and  he  had  no  great  faith  in  the  Great  Book  of  the  Public 
Debt.  "All  that's  the  Rue  Quincampois !"  he  said.  His 
house  in  the  Rue  Filles-du-Clavaire  belonged  to  him,  as  we 
have  already  stated.  He  had  two  servants,  "a  male  and  a 
female."  When  a  servant  entered  his  establishment,  M.  Gille- 
normand re-baptized  him.  He  bestowed  on  the  men  the  name 
of  their  province:  Nimois,  Comtois,  Poitevin,  Picard.  His 
last  valet  was  a  big.  foundered,  short-winded  fellow  of  fifty- 
five,  who  was  incapable  of  running  twenty  paces;  but,  as  he 
had  been  born  at  Bayonne,  M.  Gillenormand  called  him 
Basque.  All  the  female  servants  in  his  house  were  called 
Nicolettc  (even  the  Magnon,  of  whom  we  shall  hear  more 
farther  on).  One  day,  a  haughty  cook,  a  cordon  bleu,  of  the 
lofty  race  of  porters,  presented  herself.  "How  much  wages 
do  you  want  a  month?"  asked  M.  Gillenormand.  "Thirty 
francs."  "What  is  your  name?"  "Olympic."  "You  shall 
have  fifty  francs,  and  you  shall  be  called  Nicolette." 

CHAPTER    VI 

IN   WHICH   MAQNON   AND   HER   TWO   CHILDREN"   ARE   SEEN 

WITH  M.  Gillenormand,  sorrow  was  converted  into  wrath ; 
he  was  furious  at  being  in  despair.  He  had  all  sorts  of  preju- 
dices and  took  all  sorts  of  liberties.  One  of  the  facts  of  which 
his  exterior  relief  and  his  internal  satisfaction  was  composed, 
was,  as  we  have  just  hinted,  that  he  had  remained  a  brisk 
spark,  and  that  he  passed  energetically  for  such.  This  he 


32  MARIU8 

called  having  "royal  renown."  This  royal  renown  sometimes 
drew  down  upon  him  singular  windfalls.  One  day,  there 
was  brought  to  him  in  a  basket,  as  though  it  had  been  a 
basket  of  oysters,  a  stout,  newly  born  boy,  who  was  yelling 
like  the  deuce,  and  duly  wrapped  in  swaddling-clothes,  which 
a  servant-maid,  dismissed  six  months  previously,  attributed  to 
him.  M.  Gillenormand  had,  at  that  time,  fully  completed  his 
eighty-fourth  year.  Indignation  and  uproar  in  the  establish- 
ment. And  whom  did  that  bold  hussy  think  she  could  per- 
suade to  believe  that  ?  What  audacity !  What  an  abominable 
calumny !  M.  Gillenormand  himself  was  not  at  all  enraged. 
He  gazed  at  the  brat  with  the  amiable  smile  of  a  good  man 
who  is  flattered  by  the  calumny,  and  said  in  an  aside:  "Well, 
what  now  ?  What's  the  matter  ?  You  are  finely  taken  aback, 
and  really,  you  are  excessively  ignorant.  M.  le  Due  d'Angou- 
leme,  the  bastard  of  his  Majesty  Charles  IX.,  married  a  silly 
jade  of  fifteen  when  he  was  eighty-five;  M.  Virginal,  Marquis 
d'Alluye,  brother  to  the  Cardinal  de  Sourdis,  Archbishop  of 
Bordeaux,  had,  at  the  age  of  eighty-three,  by  the  maid  of 
Madame  la  Presidente  Jacquin,  a  son,  a  real  child  of  love, 
who  became  a  Chevalier  of  Malta  and  a  counsellor  of  state; 
one  of  the  great  men  of  this  century,  the  Abbe  Tabaraud.  is 
the  son  of  a  man  of  eighty-seven.  There  is  nothing  out  of  the 
ordinary  in  these  things.  And  then,  the  Bible !  Upon  that 
I  declare  that  this  little  gentleman  is  none  of  mine.  Let  him 
be  taken  care  of.  It  is  not  his  fault."  This  manner  of  pro- 
cedure was  good-tempered.  The  woman,  whose  name  was 
Magnon,  sent  him  another  parcel  in  the  following  year.  It 
was  a  boy  again.  Thereupon,  M.  Gillenormand  capitulated. 
He  sent  the  two  brats  back  to  their  mother,  promising  to  pay 
eighty  francs  a  month  for  their  maintenance,  on  the  condition 
that  the  said  mother  would  not  do  so  any  more.  He  added : 
"I  insist  upon  it  that  the  mother  shall  treat  them  well.  I 
shall  go  to  see  them  from  time  to  time."  And  this  he  did.  He 
had  had  a  brother  who  was  a  priest,  and  who  had  been  rector 
of  the  Academy  of  Poitiers  for  three  and  thirty  years,  and  had 
died  at  seventy-nine.  "I  lost  him  young,"  said  he.  This 


THK  GREAT  BOURGEOIS  33 

brother,  of  whom  hut  little  memory  remains,  was  a  peaceable 
miser,  who.  being  a  priest,  thought  himself  bound  to  bestow 
alms  on  the  poor  whom  he  met,  but  he  never  gave  them 
anything  except  bad  or  demonetized  sous,  thereby  discover- 
ing a  means  of  going  to  hell  hy  way  of  paradise.  As  for  M. 
Oillenormand  the  elder,  he  never  haggled  over  his  alms- 
giving, but  gave  gladly  and  nobly.  He  was  kindly,  abrupt, 
charitable,  and  if  he  had  been  rich,  his  turn  of  mind  would 
have  been  magnificent.  He  desired  that  all  which  concerned 
him  should  be  done  in  a  grand  manner,  even  his  rogueries. 
One  day,  having  been  cheated  by  a  business  man  in  a  matter 
of  inheritance,  in  a  gross  and  apparent  manner,  he  uttered 
this  solemn  exclamation :  "That  was  indecently  done !  I  am 
really  ashamed  of  this  pilfering.  Everything  has  degenerated 
in  this  century,  even  the  rascals.  Morbleu  !  this  is  not  the  way 
to  rob  a  man  of  my  standing.  I  am  robbed  as  though  in  a 
forest,  but  badly  robbed.  Silvcp  sint  consule  dignce!"  He  had 
had  two  wives,  as  we  have  already  mentioned ;  by  the  first  he 
had  had  a  daughter,  who  had  remained  unmarried,  and  by  the 
second  another  daughter,  who  had  died  at  about  the  age  of 
thirty,  who  had  wedded,  through  love,  or  chance,  or  otherwise, 
a  soldier  of  fortune  who  had  served  in  the  armies  of  the 
Republic  and  of  the  Empire,  who  had  won  the  cross  at  Auster- 
litz  and  had  been  made  colonel  at  Waterloo.  "He  is  the  dis- 
grace of  my  family,"  said  the  old  bourgeois.  He  took  an 
immense  amount  of  snutf,  and  had  a  particularly  graceful 
manner  of  plucking  at  his  lace  ruflle  with  the  back  of  one 
hand.  He  believed  verv  little  in  God. 


CHAPTER    VII 
RULE:  RECEIVE  NO  ONE  EXCEPT  IN  THE  EVENING 

SUCH  was  M.  Luc-Esprit  Gillenormand,  who  had  not  lost 
his  hair, — which  was  gray  rather  than  white, — and  which  was 
always  dressed  in  "dog's  ears."  To  sum  up,  he  was  venerable 
in  spite  of  all  this. 


34  MARIUB 

He  had  something  of  the  eighteenth  century  about  him; 
frivolous  and  great. 

In  1814  and  during  the  early  years  of  the  Restoration,  M. 
Gillenormand,  who  was  still  young, — he  was  only  seventy-four, 
— lived  in  the  Faubourg  Saint  Germain,  Rue  Servandoni,  near 
Saint-Sulpice.  He  had  only  retired  to  the  Marais  when  he 
quitted  society,  long  after  attaining  the  age  of  eighty. 

And,  on  abandoning  society,  he  had  immured  himself  in  his 
habits.  The  principal  one,  and  that  which  was  invariable,  was 
to  keep  his  door  absolutely  closed  during  the  day,  and  never  to 
receive  any  one  whatever  except  in  the  evening.  He  dined  at 
five  o'clock,  and  after  that  his  door  was  open.  That  had  been 
the  fashion  of  his  century,  and  he  would  not  swerve  from  it. 
"The  day  is  vulgar,"  said  he,  "and  deserves  only  a  closed 
shutter.  Fashionable  people  only  light  up  their  minds  when 
the  zenith  lights  up  its  stars."  And  he  barricaded  himself 
against  every  one,  even  had  it  been  the  king  himself.  This  was 
the  antiquated  elegance  of  his  day. 

CHAPTER    VIII 

TWO    DO    NOT    MAKE    A    PAIR 

WE  have  just  spoken  of  M.  Gillenormand's  two  daughters. 
They  had  come  into  the  world  ten  years  apart.  In  their  youth 
they  had  borne  very  little  resemblance  to  each  other,  either  in 
character  or  countenance,  and  had  also  been  as  little  like  sisters 
to  each  other  as  possible.  The  youngest  had  a  charming  soul, 
which  turned  towards  all  that  belongs  to  the  light,  was  occu- 
pied with  flowers,  with  verses,  with  music,  which  fluttered 
away  into  glorious  space,  enthusiastic,  ethereal,  and  was 
wedded  from  her  very  youth,  in  ideal,  to  a  vague  and  heroic 
figure.  The  elder  had  also  her  chimera  ;  she  espied  in  the  a/.ure 
some  very  wealthy  purveyor,  a  contractor,  a  splendidly  stupid 
husband,  a  million  made  man,  or  even  a  prefect ;  the  receptions 
of  the  Prefecture,  an  usher  in  the  antechamber  with  a  chain  on 
his  neck,  oHicial  balls,  the  harangues  of  the  town-hall,  to  be 


THE  GREAT  BOURGEOIS  35 

"Madame  la  Prefete," — all  this  had  created  a  whirlwind  in 
her  imagination.  Thus  the  two  sisters  strayed,  each  in  her  own 
dream,  at  the  epoch  when  they  were  young  girls.  Both  had 
wings,  the  one  like  an  angel,  the  other  like  a  goose. 

No  ambition  is  ever  fully  realized,  here  below  at  least.  No 
paradise  becomes  terrestrial  in  our  day.  The  younger  wedded 
the  man  of  her  dreams,  but  she  died.  The  elder  did  not  marry 
at  all. 

At  the  moment  when  she  makes  her  entrance  into  this  his- 
tory which  we  are  relating,  she  was  an  antique  virtue,  an  in- 
combustible prude,  with  one  of  the  sharpest  noses,  and  one  of 
the  most  obtuse  minds  that  it  is  possible  to  see.  A  character- 
istic detail ;  outside  of  her  immediate  family,  no  one  had  ever 
known  her  first  name.  She  was  called  Mademoiselle  Gillenor- 
mand,  the  elder. 

In  the  matter  of  cant,  Mademoiselle  Gillenormand  could 
have  given  points  to  a  miss.  Her  modesty  was  carried  to  the 
other  extreme  of  blackness.  She  cherished  a  frightful  memory 
of  her  life;  one  day,  a  man  had  beheld  ber  garter. 

Age  had  only  served  to  accentuate  this  pitiless  modesty. 
Her  guimpe  was  never  sufficiently  opaque,  and  never  ascended 
sufTiciently  high.  She  multiplied  clasps  and  pins  where  no  one 
would  have  dreamed  of  looking.  The  peculiarity  of  prudery  is 
to  place  all  the  more  sentinels  in  proportion  as  the  fortress  is 
the  less  menaced. 

Nevertheless,  let  him  who  can  explain  these  antique  mys- 
teries of  innocence,  she  allowed  an  officer  of  the  Lancers,  her 
grand  nephew,  named  Theodule,  to  embrace  her  without  dis- 
pleasure. 

In  spite  of  this  favored  Lancer,  the  label:  Prude,  under 
which  we  have  classed  her,  suited  her  to  absolute  perfection. 
Mademoiselle  Gillenormand  was  a  sort  of  twilight  soul.  Pru- 
dery is  a  demi-virtue  and  a  demi-vice. 

To  prudery  she  added  bigotry,  a  well-assorted  lining.  She 
belonged  to  the  society  of  the  Virgin,  wore  a  white  veil  on 
certain  festivals,  mumbled  special  orisons,  revered  "the  holy 
blood,"  venerated  "the  sacred  heart,"  remained  for  hours  in 


36  MARIU8 

contemplation  before  a  rococo-Jesuit  altar  in  a  chapel  which 
was  inaccessible  to  the  rank  and  file  of  the  faithful,  and  there 
allowed  her  soul  to  soar  among  little  clouds  of  marble,  and 
through  great  rays  of  gilded  wood. 

She  had  a  chapel  friend,  an  ancient  virgin  like  herself, 
named  Mademoiselle  Vaubois,  who  was  a  positive  blockhead, 
and  beside  whom  Mademoiselle  Gillenormand  had  the  pleasure 
of  being  an  eagle.  Beyond  the  Agnus  Dei  and  Ave  Maria, 
Mademoiselle  Vaubois  had  no  knowledge  of  anything  except  of 
the  different  ways  of  making  preserves.  Mademoiselle  Vau- 
bois, perfect  in  her  style,  was  the  ermine  of  stupidity  without 
a  single  spot  of  intelligence. 

Let  us  say  it  plainly,  Mademoiselle  Gillenormand  had 
gained  rather  than  lost  as  she  grew  older.  This  is  the  case  with 
passive  natures.  She  had  never  been  malicious,  which  is  rela- 
tive kindness ;  and  then,  years  wear  away  the  angles,  and  the 
softening  which  comes  with  time  had  come  to  her.  She  was 
melancholy  with  an  obscure  sadness  of  which  she  did  not  her- 
self know  the  secret.  There  breathed  from  her  whole  person 
the  stupor  of  a  life  that  was  finished,  and  which  had  never  had 
a  beginning. 

She  kept  house  for  her  father.  M.  Gillenormand  had  his 
daughter  near  him,  as  we  have  seen  that  Monseigneur  Bien- 
venu  had  his  sister  with  him.  These  households  comprised  of 
an  old  man  and  an  old  spinster  are  not  rare,  and  always  have 
the  touching  aspect  of  two  weaknesses  leaning  on  each  other 
for  support. 

There  was  also  in  this  house,  between  this  elderly  spinster 
and  this  old  man,  a  child,  a  little  boy,  who  was  always  trem- 
bling and  mute  in  the  presence  of  M.  Gillenormand.  M.  Gille- 
normand never  addressed  this  child  except  in  a  severe  voice, 
and  sometimes,  with  uplifted  cane:  "Here,  sir!  rascal, 
scoundrel,  come  here ! — Answer  me,  you  scamp !  Just  let 
me  see  you,  you  good-for-nothing!"  etc.,  etc.  He  idolized 
him. 

This  was  his  grandson.  We  shall  meet  with  this  child  again 
later  on. 


BOOK  THIRD.— THE  GRANDFATHER  AND  THE 
GRANDSON 

CHAPTER  I 

AN   ANCIENT   SALON 

WHEN  M.  Gillenormand  lived  in  the  Rue  Servandoni,  he 
had  frequented  many  very  good  and  very  aristocratic  salons. 
Although  a  bourgeois,  M.  Gillenormand  was  received  in  so- 
ciety. As  he  had  a  double  measure  of  wit,  in  the  first  place, 
that  which  was  born  with  him,  and  secondly,  that  which  was 
attributed  to  him,  he  was  even  sought  out  and  made  much  of. 
He  never  went  anywhere  except  on  condition  of  being  the  chief 
person  there.  There  are  people  who  will  have  influence  at  any 
price,  and  who  will  have  other  people  busy  themselves  over 
them ;  when  they  cannot  be  oracles,  they  turn  wags.  M.  Gille- 
normand was  not  of  this  nature ;  his  domination  in  the  Royal- 
ist salons  which  he  frequented  cost  his  self-respect  nothing. 
He  was  an  oracle  everywhere.  It  had  happened  to  him  to  hold 
his  own  against  M.  de  Bonald,  and  even  against  M.  Bengy- 
Puy-Vallee. 

About  1817,  he  invariably  passed  two  afternoons  a  week  in 
a  house  in  his  own  neighborhood,  in  the  Rue  Ferou,  with 
Madame  la  Baronne  de  T.,  a  worthy  and  respectable  person, 
whose  husband  had  been  Ambassador  of  France  to  Berlin 
under  Louis  XVI.  Baron  de  T.,  who,  during  his  lifetime,  had 
gone  very  passionately  into  ecstasies  and  magnetic  visions,  had 
died  bankrupt,  during  the  emigration,  leaving,  as  his  entire 
fortune,  some  very  curious  Memoirs  about  Mesmer  and  his  tub, 
in  ten  manuscript  volumes,  bound  in  red  morocco  and  gilded 
on  the  edges.  Madame  de  T.  had  not  published  the  memoirs, 


38  MAItlUB 

out  of  pride,  aud  maintained  herself  on  a  meagre  income  which 
had  survived  no  one  knew  how. 

Madame  de  T.  lived  far  from  the  Court;  "a  very  mixed 
society,"  as  she  said,  in  a  noble  isolation,  proud  and  poor.  A 
few  friends  assembled  twice  a  week  about  her  widowed  hearth, 
and  these  constituted  a  purely  Royalist  salon.  They  sipped 
tea  there,  and  uttered  groans  or  cries  of  horror  at  the  century, 
the  charter,  the  Bonapartisto,  the  prostitution  of  the  blue  rib- 
bon, or  the  Jacobinism  of  Louis  XVIII.,  according  as  the  wind 
veered  towards  elegy  or  dithyrambs;  and  they  spoke  in  low 
tones  of  the  hopes  which  were  presented  by  Monsieur,  after- 
wards Charles  X. 

The  songs  of  the  fishwomen,  in  which  Napoleon  was  called 
Nicolas,  were  received  there  with  transports  of  joy.  Duchesses, 
the  most  delicate  and  charming  women  in  the  world,  went  into 
ecstasies  over  couplets  like  the  following,  addressed  to  "the 

federates" : — 

Refoncez  dans  vos  culottes1 
Le  bout  d'  chemis'  qui  vous  pend. 
Qu'on  n'  dis'  pas  qu'  les  patriotes 
Ont  arbor£  1'  drapeau  blanc? 

There  they  amused  themselves  with  puns  which  were  consid- 
ered terrible,  with  innocent  plays  upon  words  which  they  sup- 
posed to  be  venomous,  with  quatrains,  with  distiches  even; 
thus,  upon  the  Dessolles  ministry,  a  moderate  cabinet,  of 
which  MM.  Decazes  and  Deserre  were  members: — 

Pour  raffermir  le  trone  £branl£  sur  sa  base,1 
II  faut  changer  de  sol,  et  de  serre  et  de  case. 

Or  they  drew  up  a  list  of  the  chamber  of  peers,  "an  abomi- 
nably Jacobin  chamber,"  and  from  this  list  they  combined 
alliances  of  names,  in  such  a  manner  as  to  form,  for  example, 
phrases  like  the  following:  Damas.  Sabran.  Gouvion-Saint- 

'Tuck  into  your  trousers  the  shirt-tail  that  is  hanging  out.  Let  it 
not  be  said  that  patriots  have  hoisted  the  white  flag. 

'In  order  to  re-establish  the  shaken  throne  firmly  on  its  base,  soil 
(Des  aollea),  greenhouse  and  house  (Decazes)  nni.-t  be  changed. 


THE  GRANDFATHER  AND  THE  GRANDSON      39 

Cyr. — All  this  was  done  merrily.  In  that  society,  they 
parodied  the  Revolution.  They  used  I  know  not  what  desires 
to  give  point  to  the  same  wrath  in  inverse  sense.  They  sang 
their  little  Qa  ira: — 

Ah !  ca  ira  ga  ira  <ja  ira ! 

Les  Bonapartistea  a  la  lanterne! 

Songs  are  like  the  guillotine;  they  chop  away  indiffer- 
ently, to-day  this  head,  to-morrow  that.  It  is  only  a  vari- 
ation. 

In  the  Fualdes  affair,  which  belongs  to  this  epoch,  1816,  they 
took  part  for  Bastide  and  Jausion,  because  Fualdes  was  "a 
Buonapartist."  They  designated  the  liberals  as  friends  and 
brothers;  this  constituted  the  most  deadly  insult. 

Like  certain  church  towers,  Madame  de  T.'s  salon  had  two 
cocks.  One  of  them  was  M.  Gillenormand,  the  other  was 
Comte  de  Lamothe-Valois,  of  whom  it  was  whispered  about, 
with  a  sort  of  respect :  "Do  you  know  ?  That  is  the  Lamothe 
of  the  affair  of  the  necklace."  These  singular  amnesties  do 
occur  in  parties. 

Let  us  add  the  following :  in  the  bourgeoisie,  honored  situ- 
ations decay  through  too  easy  relations;  one  must  beware 
whom  one  admits;  in  the  same  way  that  there  is  a  loss  of 
caloric  in  the  vicinity  of  those  who  are  cold,  there  is  a  diminu- 
tion of  consideration  in  the  approach  of  despised  persons.  The 
ancient  society  of  the  upper  classes  held  themselves  above  this 
law,  as  above  every  other.  Marigny,  the  brother  of  the  Pom- 
padour, had  his  entry  with  M.  le  Prince  de  Soubise.  In 
spite  of?  No,  because.  Du  Barry,  the  god-father  of  the 
Vaubernier,  was  very  welcome  at  the  house  of  M.  le  Marechal 
de  Richelieu.  This  society  is  Olympus.  Mercury  and  the 
Prince  de  Guemenee  are  at  home  there.  A  thief  is  admitted 
there,  provided  he  be  a  god. 

The  Comte  de  Lamothe,  who,  in  1815,  was  an  old  man 
seventy-five  years  of  age,  had  nothing  remarkable  about  him 
except  his  silent  and  sententious  air,  his  cold  and  angular  face, 
his  perfectly  polished  manners,  his  coat  buttoned  up  to  his 


40  MARIU8 

cravat,  and  his  long  legs  always  crossed  in  long,  flabby  trousers 
of  the  hue  of  burnt  sienna.  His  face  was  the  same  color  as  his 
trousers. 

This  M.  de  Lamothe  was  "held  in  consideration"  in  this 
salon  on  account  of  his  "celebrity"  and,  strange  to  say,  though 
true,  because  of  his  name  of  Valois. 

As  for  M.  Gillenormand,  his  consideration  was  of  absolutely 
first-rate  quality.  He  had,  in  spite  of  his  levity,  and  without 
its  interfering  in  any  way  with  his  dignity,  a  certain  manner 
about  him  which  was  imposing,  dignified,  honest,  and  lofty,  in 
1  bourgeois  fashion ;  and  his  great  age  added  to  it.  One  is  not 
i  century  with  impunity.  The  years  finally  produce  around  a 
head  a  venerable  dishevelment. 

In  addition  to  this,  he  said  things  which  had  the  genuine 
sparkle  of  the  old  rock.  Thus,  when  the  King  of  Prussia,  after 
having  restored  Louis  XVIII.,  came  to  pay  the  latter  a  visit 
under  the  name  of  the  Count  de  Ruppin,  he  was  received  by 
the  descendant  of  Louis  XIV.  somewhat  as  though  he  had  been 
the  Marquis  de  Brandebourg,  and  with  the  most  delicate  im- 
pertinence. M.  Gillenormand  approved :  "All  kings  who  are 
not  the  King  of  France,"  said  he,  "are  provincial  kings."  One 
day,  the  following  question  was  put  and  the  following  answer 
returned  in  his  presence :  "To  what  was  the  editor  of  the  Cour- 
rier  Franqais  condemned?"  "To  be  suspended."  "Sus  is 
superfluous,"  observed  M.  Gillenormand.1  Remarks  of  this 
nature  found  a  situation. 

At  the  Te  Deum  on  the  anniversary  of  the  return  of  the 
Bourbons,  he  said,  on  seeing  M.  de  Talleyrand  pass  by :  "There 
goes  his  Excellency  the  Evil  One." 

M.  GJllenormand  was  always  accompanied  by  his  daughter, 
that  tall  mademoiselle,  who  was  over  forty  and  looked  fifty, 
and  by  a  handsome  little  boy  of  seven  years,  white,  rosy,  fresh, 
with  happy  and  trusting  eyes,  who  never  appeared  in  that 
salon  without  hearing  voices  murmur  around  him :  "How 
handsome  he  is  !  What  a  pity  !  Poor  child  !"  This  child  was 
the  one  of  whom  we  dropped  a  word  a  while  ago.  He  was 
lk!u!tpendu,  suspended;  pendu,  hung. 


THE  GRANDFATHER  AND  THE  (JRAXDfiOX  41 

called  "poor  child,"  because  he  had  for  a  father  "a  brigand  of 
the  Loire." 

This  brigand  of  the  Loire  was  M.  Gillenormand's  son-in- 
law,  who  has  already  been  mentioned,  and  whom  M.  Gillenor- 
mand  called  "the  disgrace  of  his  family." 


CHAPTER    II 

ONE  OF  THE  RED  SPECTRES  OF  THAT  EPOCH 

ANY  one  who  had  chanced  to  pass  through  the  little  town  of 
Vernon  at  this  epoch,  and  who  had  happened  to  walk  across 
that  fine  monumental  bridge,  which  will  soon  be  succeeded, 
let  us  hope,  by  some  hideous  iron  cable  bridge,  might  have 
observed,  had  he  dropped  his  eyes  over  the  parapet,  a  man 
about  fifty  years  of  age  wearing  a  leather  cap,  and  trousers 
and  a  waistcoat  of  coarse  gray  cloth,  to  which  something 
yellow  which  had  been  a  red  ribbon,  was  sewn,  shod  with 
wooden  sabots,  tanned  by  the  sun,  his  face  nearly  black  and 
his  hair  nearly  white,  a  large  scar  on  his  forehead  which  ran 
down  upon  his  cheek,  bowed,  bent,  prematurely  aged,  who 
walked  nearly  every  day,  hoc  and  sickle  in  hand,  in  one  of 
those  compartments  surrounded  by  walls  which  abut  on  the 
bridge,  and  border  the  left  bank  of  the  Seine  like  a  chain  of 
terraces,  charming  enclosures  full  of  flowers  of  which  one 
could  say,  were  they  much  larger:  "these  are  gardens,"  and 
were  they  a  little  smaller:  "these  are  bouquets."  All  these 
enclosures  abut  upon  the  river  at  one  end,  and  on  a  house  at 
the  other.  The  man  in  the  waistcoat  and  the  wooden  shoes  of 
whom  we  have  just  spoken,  inhabited  the  smallest  of  these 
enclosures  and  the  most  humble  of  these  houses  about  1817. 
He  lived  there  alone  and  solitary,  silently  and  poorly,  with  a 
woman  who  was  neither  young  nor  old,  neither  homely  nor 
pretty,  neither  a  peasant  nor  a  bourgeoise,  who  served  him. 
The  plot  of  earth  which  he  called  his  garden  was  celebrated  in 
the  town  for  the  beauty  of  the  flowers  which  he  cultivated 
there.  These  flowers  were  his  occupation. 


42  MARIV8 

By  dint  of  labor,  of  perseverance,  of  attention,  and  of 
buckets  of  water,  he  had  succeeded  in  creating  after  the 
Creator,  and  he  had  invented  certain  tulips  and  certain 
dahlias  which  seemed  to  have  been  forgotten  by  nature.  He 
was  ingenious ;  he  had  forestalled  Soulange  Bodin  in  the  for- 
mation of  little  clumps  of  earth  of  heath  mould,  for  the 
cultivation  of  rare  and  precious  shrubs  from  America  and 
China.  He  was  in  his  alleys  from  the  break  of  day,  in 
summer,  planting,  cutting,  hoeing,  watering,  walking  amid 
his  flowers  with  an  air  of  kindness,  sadness,  and  sweetness, 
sometimes  standing  motionless  and  thoughtful  for  hours, 
listening  to  the  song  of  a  bird  in  the  trees,  the  babble  of  a 
child  in  a  house,  or  with  his  eyes  fixed  on  a  drop  of  dew  at 
the  tip  of  a  spear  of  grass,  of  which  the  sun  made  a  carbuncle. 
His  table  was  very  plain,  and  he  drank  more  milk  than  wine. 
A  child  could  make  him  give  way,  and  his  servant  scolded  him. 
He  was  so  timid  that  he  seemed  shy.  he  rarely  went  out,  and 
he  saw  no  one  but  the  poor  people  who  tapped  at  his  pane  and 
his  cure,  the  Abbe  Mabeuf,  a  good  old  man.  Nevertheless, 
if  the  inhabitants  of  the  town,  or  strangers,  or  any  chance 
comers,  curious  to  see  his  tulips,  rang  at  his  little  cottage,  he 
opened  his  door  with  a  smile.  He  was  the  "brigand  of  the 
Loire." 

Any  one  who  had,  at  the  same  time,  read  military  memoirs, 
biographies,  the  Moniteur,  and  the  bulletins  of  the  grand 
army,  would  have  been  struck  by  a  name  which  occurs  there 
with  tolerable  frequency,  the  name  of  Georges  Pontmercy. 
When  very  young,  this  Georges  Pontmercy  had  been  a  soldier 
in  Saintonge's  regiment.  The  revolution  broke  out.  Saint- 
onge's  regiment  formed  a  part  of  the  army  of  the  Rhine; 
for  the  old  regiments  of  the  monarchy  preserved  their  names 
of  provinces  even  after  the  fall  of  the  monarchy,  and  were 
only  divided  into  brigades  in  1794.  Pontmercy  fought  at 
Spire,  at  Worms,  at  Neustadt,  at  Turkheim,  at  Alzey,  at 
Mayence,  where  he  was  one  of  the  two  hundred  who  formed 
Houchard's  rearguard.  It  was  the  twelfth  to  hold  its  ground 
against  the  corps  of  the  Prince  of  Hesse,  behind  the  old 


THE  GRANDFATHER  AND  THE  GRANDSON      43 

rampart  of  Andcrnach,  and  only  rejoined  the  main  body  of 
the  army  when  the  enemy's  cannon  had  opened  a  breach  from 
the  cord  of  the  parapet  to  the  foot  of  the  glacis.  He  was 
under  Kleber  at  Marchiennes  and  at  the  battle  of  Mont- 
Palissel,  where  a  ball  from  a  biscaien  broke  his  arm.  Then 
he  passed  to  the  frontier  of  Italy,  and  was  one  of  the  thirty 
grenadiers  who  defended  the  Col  de  Tende  with  Joubert. 
Joubert  was  appointed  its  adjutant-general,  and  Pontmercy 
sub-lieutenant.  Pontmercy  was  by  Berthier's  side  in  the 
midst  of  the  grape-shot  of  that  day  at  Lodi  which  caused 
Bonaparte  to  say :  "Berthier  has  been  cannoneer,  cavalier,  and 
grenadier."  He  beheld  his  old  general,  Joubert,  fall  at  Novi, 
at  the  moment  when,  with  uplifted  sabre,  he  was  shouting: 
"Forward !"  Having  been  embarked  with  his  company  in  the 
exigencies  of  the  campaign,  on  board  a  pinnace  which  was  pro- 
ceeding from  Genoa  to  some  obscure  port  on  the  coast,  he 
fell  into  a  wasps'-nest  of  seven  or  eight  English  vessels.  The 
Genoese  commander  wanted  to  throw  his  cannon  into  the 
sea,  to  hide  the  soldiers  between  decks,  and  to  slip  along  in  the 
dark  as  a  merchant  vessel.  Pontmercy  had  the  colors  hoisted 
to  the  peak,  and  sailed  proudly  past  under  the  guns  of  the 
British  frigates.  Twenty  leagues  further  on,  his  audacity  hav- 
ing increased,  he  attacked  v/ith  his  pinnace,  and  captured  a 
large  English  transport  which  was  carrying  troops  to  Sicily, 
and  which  was  so  loaded  down  with  men  and  horses  that  the 
vessel  was  sunk  to  the  level  of  the  sea.  In  1805  he  was  in  that 
Malher  division  which  took  Giinzberg  from  the  Archduke 
Ferdinand.  At  Weltingen  he  received  into  his  arms,  beneath 
a  storm  of  bullets,  Colonel  Maupetit,  mortally  wounded  at  the 
head  of  the  9th  Dragoons.  He  distinguished  himself  at 
Austerlitz  in  that  admirable  march  in  echelons  effected  under 
the  enemy's  fire.  When  the  cavalry  of  the  Imperial  Russian 
Guard  crushed  a  battalion  of  the  4th  of  the  line,  Pontmercy 
was  one  of  those  who  took  their  revenge  and  overthrew  the 
Guard.  The  Emperor  gave  him  the  cross.  Pontmercy  saw 
Wurmser  at  Mantua,  Melas,  and  Alexandria,  Mack  at  Ulm, 
made  prisoners  in  succession.  He  formed  a  part  of  the  eighth 


44  MARIU8 

corps  of  the  grand  army  which  Mortier  commanded,  and 
which  captured  Hamburg.  Then  he  was  transferred  to  the 
55th  of  the  line,  which  was  the  old  regiment  of  Flanders.  At 
Eylau  he  was  in  the  cemetery  where,  for  the  space  of  two 
hours,  the  heroic  Captain  Louis  Hugo,  the  uncle  of  the  author 
of  this  book,  sustained  alone  with  his  company  of  eighty-three 
men  every  effort  of  the  hostile  army.  Pontmercy  was  one  of 
the  three  who  emerged  alive  from  that  cemetery.  He  was  at 
Friedland.  Then  he  saw  Moscow.  Then  La  Beresina,  then 
Lutzen,  Bautzen,  Dresden,  Wachau,  Leipzig,  and  the  defiles 
of  Gelenhausen ;  then  Montmirail,  Chateau-Thierry,  Craon, 
the  banks  of  the  Marne,  the  banks  of  the  Aisne,  and  the 
redoubtable  position  of  Laon.  At  Arnay-Le-Duc.  being  then 
a  captain,  he  put  ten  Cossacks  to  the  sword,  and  saved,  not 
his  general,  but  his  corporal.  He  was  well  slashed  up  on  this 
occasion,  and  twenty-seven  splinters  were  extracted  from  his 
left  arm  alone.  Eight  days  before  the  capitulation  of  Paris 
he  had  just  exchanged  with  a  comrade  and  entered  the  cavalry. 
He  had  what  was  called  under  the  old  regime,  the  double 
hand,  that  is  to  say,  an  equal  aptitude  for  handling  the  sabre 
or  the  musket  as  a  soldier,  or  a  squadron  or  a  battalion  as  an 
officer.  It  is  from  this  aptitude,  perfected  by  a  military 
education,  which  certain  special  branches  of  the  service  arise, 
the  dragoons,  for  example,  who  are  both  cavalry-men  and 
infantry'  at  one  and  the  same  time.  He  accompanied  Xapoleon 
to  the  Island  of  Elba.  At  Waterloo,  he  was  chief  of  a  squad- 
ron of  cuirassiers,  in  Dubois'  brigade.  It  was  he  who  cap- 
tured the  standard  of  the  Lunenburg  battalion.  He  came  and 
cast  the  flag  at  the  Emperor's  feet.  He  was  covered  with 
blood.  While  tearing  down  the  banner  he  had  received  a 
sword-cut  across  his  face.  The  Emperor,  greatly  pleased, 
shouted  to  him :  "You  are  a  colonel,  you  are  a  baron,  you  are 
an  officer  of  the  Legion  of  Honor!"  Pontmercy  replied: 
"Sire,  I  thank  you  for  my  widow."  An  hour  later,  he  fell 
in  the  ravine  of  Ohain.  Now,  who  was  this  Georges  Pont- 
mercy? He  was  this  same  "brigand  of  the  Loire." 

We  have  already  seen   something  of  his   historv.     After 


THE  GRANDFATHER  .IX  D  THE  GRANDSON      45 

Waterloo,  Pontmercy,  who  had  been  pulled  out  of  the  hollow 
road  of  Ohain,  as  it  will  be  remembered,  had  succeeded  in 
joining  the  army,  and  had  dragged  himself  from  ambulance 
to  ambulance  as  far  as  the  cantonments  of  the  Loire. 

The  Restoration  had  placed  him  on  half-pay,  then  had  sent 
him  into  residence,  that  is  to  say,  under  .surveillance,  at  Ver- 
non.  King  Louis  XVIII.,  regarding  all  that  which  had  taken 
place  during  the  Hundred  Days  as  not  having  occurred  at  all, 
did  not  recognize  his  quality  as  an  officer  of  the  Legion  of 
Honor,  nor  his  grade  of  colonel,  nor  his  title  of  baron.  He,  on 
his  side,  neglected  no  occasion  of  signing  himself  "Colonel 
Baron  Pontmercy."  He  had  only  an  old  blue  coat,  and  he 
never  went  out  without  fastening  to  it  his  rosette  as  an  officer 
of  the  Legion  of  Honor.  The  Attorney  for  the  Crown  had 
him  warned  that  the  authorities  would  prosecute  him  for 
"illegal"  wearing  of  this  decoration.  When  this  notice  was 
conveyed  to  him  through  an  officious  intermediary,  Pontmercy 
retorted  with  a  bitter  smile:  "I  do  not  know  whether  I  no 
longer  understand  French,  or  whether  you  no  longer  speak 
it;  but  the  fact  is  that  I  do  not  understand."  Then  he  went 
out  for  eight  successive  days  with  his  rosette.  They  dared  not 
interfere  with  him.  Two  or  three  times  the  Minister  of  War 
and  the  general  in  command  of  the  department  wrote  to  him 
with  the  following  address:  A  Monsieur  le  Commandant 
Pontmercy."  He  sent  back  the  letters  with  the  seals  un- 
broken. At  the  same  moment,  Napoleon  at  Saint  Helena  was 
treating  in  the  same  fashion  the  missives  of  Sir  Hudson  Lowe 
addressed  to  General  Bonaparte.  Pontmercy  had  ended,  may 
we  be  pardoned  the  expression,  by  having  in  his  mouth  the 
same  saliva  as  his  Emperor. 

In  the  same  way,  there  were  at  Rome  Carthaginian  prison- 
ers who  refused  to  salute  Flaminius,  and  who  had  a  little  of 
Hannibal's  spirit. 

One  day  he  encountered  the  district-attorney  in  one  of  the 
streets  of  Vernon,  stepped  up  to  him,  and  said :  "Mr.  Crown 
Attorney,  am  I  permitted  to  wear  my  scar?" 

He  had  nothing  save  his  meagre  half-pay  as  chief  of  squad- 


46  MARIUS 

ron.  He  had  hired  the  smallest  house  which  he  could  find  at 
Vernon.  He  lived  there  alone,  we  have  just  seen  how.  Under 
the  Empire,  between  two  wars,  he  had  found  time  to  marry 
Mademoiselle  Gillenormand.  The  old  bourgeois,  thoroughly 
indignant  at  bottom,  had  given  his  consent  with  a  sigh,  say- 
ing: "The  greatest  families  are  forced  into  it."  In  1815, 
Madame  Pontmercy,  an  admirable  woman  in  every  sense,  by 
the  way,  lofty  in  sentiment  and  rare,  and  worthy  of  her 
husband,  died,  leaving  a  child.  This  child  had  been  the 
colonel's  joy  in  his  solitude ;  but  the  grandfather  had  impera- 
tively claimed  his  grandson,  declaring  that  if  the  child  were 
not  given  to  him  he  would  disinherit  him.  The  father  had 
yielded  in  the  little  one's  interest,  and  had  transferred  his 
love  to  flowers. 

Moreover,  he  had  renounced  everything,  and  neither  stirred 
up  mischief  nor  conspired.  He  shared  his  thoughts  between 
the  innocent  things  which  he  was  then  doing  and  the  great 
things  which  he  had  done.  He  passed  his  time  in  expecting  a 
pink  or  in  recalling  Austerlitz. 

M.  Gillenormand  kept  up  no  relations  with  his  son-in-law. 
The  colonel  was  "a  bandit"  to  him.  M.  Gillenormand  never 
mentioned  the  colonel,  except  when  he  occasionally  made 
mocking  allusions  to  "his  Baronship."  It  had  been  expressly 
agreed  that  Pontmercy  should  never  attempt  to  see  his  son  nor 
to  speak  to  him,  under  penalty  of  having  the  latter  handed 
over  to  him  disowned  and  disinherited.  For  the  Gillenor- 
mands,  Pontmercy  was  a  man  afflicted  with  the  plague.  They 
intended  to  bring  up  the  child  in  their  own  way.  Perhaps 
the  colonel  was  wrong  to  accept  these  conditions,  but  he  sub- 
mitted to  them,  thinking  that  he  was  doing  right  and  sacri- 
ficing no  one  but  himself. 

The  inheritance  of  Father  Gillenormand  did  not  amount  to 
much;  but  the  inheritance  of  Mademoiselle  Gillenormand  the 
elder  was  considerable.  This  aunt,  who  had  remained  un- 
married, was  very  rich  on  the  maternal  side,  and  her  sifter's 
son  was  her  natural  heir.  The  boy,  whose  name  was  Marius, 
knew  that  he  had  a  father,  but  nothing  more.  Xo  one  opened 


THE  GRANDFATHER  AND  THE  GKA \DKON  47 

his  mouth  to  him  about  it.  Nevertheless,  in  the  society  into 
which  his  grandfather  took  him,  whispers,  innuendoes,  and 
winks,  had  eventually  enlightened  the  little  hoy's  mind  ;  he  had 
finally  understood  something  of  the  case,  and  as  he  naturally 
took  in  the  ideas  and  opinions  which  were,  so  to  speak,  the  air 
he  breathed,  by  a  sort  of  infiltration  and  slow  penetration,  he 
gradually  came  to  think  of  his  father  only  with  shame  and 
with  a  pain  at  his  heart. 

While  he  was  growing  up  in  this  fashion,  the  colonel  slipped 
away  every  two  or  three  months,  came  to  Paris  on  the  sly.  like 
a  criminal  breaking  his  ban,  and  went  and  posted  himself  at 
Saint-Sulpice,  at  the  hour  when  Aunt  Gillenormand  led 
Marius  to  the  mass.  There,  trembling  lest  the  aunt  should 
turn  round,  concealed  behind  a  pillar,  motionless,  not  daring 
to  breathe,  he  gazed  at  his  child.  The  scarred  veteran  was 
afraid  of  that  old  spinster. 

From  this  had  arisen  his  connection  with  the  cure  of 
Vernon,  M.  1'Abbe  Mabcuf. 

That  worthy  priest  was  the  brother  of  a  warden  of  Saint- 
Sulpice,  who  had  often  observed  this  man  gazing  at  his  child, 
and  the  scar  on  his  cheek,  and  the  large  tears  in  his  eyes. 
That  man.  who  had  so  manly  an  air,  yet  who  was  weeping  like 
a  woman,  had  struck  the  warden.  That  face  had  clung  to  his 
mind.  One  day,  having  gone  to  Yernon  to  see  his  brother,  he 
had  encountered  Colonel  Pontmercy  on  the  bridge,  and  had 
recognized  the  man  of  Saint-Sulpice.  The  warden  had  men- 
tioned the  circumstance  to  the  cure,  and  both  had  paid  the 
colonel  a  visit,  on  some  pretext  or  other.  This  visit  led  to 
others.  The  colonel,  who  had  been  extremely  reserved  at  first, 
ended  by  opening  his  heart,  and  the  cure  and  the  warden 
finally  came  to  know  the  whole  history,  and  how  Pontmercy 
was  sacrificing  his  happiness  to  his  child's  future.  This 
caused  the  cure  to  regard  him  with  veneration  and  tenderness, 
and  the  colonel,  on  his  side,  became  fond  of  the  cure.  And 
moreover,  when  both  are  sincere  and  good,  no  men  so  pene- 
trate each  other,  and  so  amalgamate  with  each  other,  as  an 
old  priest  and  an  old  soldier.  At  bottom,  the  man  is  the  same. 


48  MARIUS 

The  one  has  devoted  his  life  to  his  country  here  below,  the 
other  to  his  country  on  high ;  that  is  the  only  difference. 

Twice  a  year,  on  the  first  of  January  and  on  St.  George's 
day,  Marius  wrote  duty  letters  to  his  father,  which  were  dic- 
tated by  his  aunt,  and  which  one  would  have  pronounced  to  be 
copied  from  some  formula ;  this  was  all  that  M.  Gillenormand 
tolerated;  and  the  father  answered  them  with  very  tender 
letters  which  the  grandfather  thrust  into  his  pocket  unread. 


CHAPTER    III 

REQUIESCANT 

MADAME  DE  T.'s  salon  was  all  that  Marius  Pontmercy  knew 
of  the  world.  It  was  the  only  opening  through  which  he  could 
get  a  glimpse  of  life.  This  opening  was  sombre,  and  more 
cold  than  warmth,  more  night  than  day,  came  to  him  through 
this  skylight.  This  child,  who  had  been  all  joy  and  light  on 
entering  this  strange  world,  soon  became  melancholy,  and, 
what  is  still  more  contrary  to  his  age,  grave.  Surrounded  by 
all  those  singular  and  imposing  personages,  he  gazed  about 
him  with  serious  amazement.  Everything  conspired  to  in- 
crease this  astonishment  in  him.  There  were  in  Madame  de 
T.'s  salon  some  very  noble  ladies  named  Mathan,  Noe,  Levis, 
— which  was  pronounced  Levi, — Cambis,  pronounced  Cam- 
byse.  These  antique  visages  and  these  Biblical  names  mingled 
in  the  child's  mind  with  the  Old  Testament  which  he  was 
learning  by  heart,  and  when  they  were  all  there,  seated  in 
a  circle  around  a  dying  fire,  sparely  lighted  by  a  lamp  shaded 
with  green,  with  their  severe  profiles,  their  gray  or  white  hair, 
their  long  gowns  of  another  age,  whose  lugubrious  colors  could 
not  be  distinguished,  dropping,  at  rare  intervals,  words  which 
were  both  majestic  and  severe,  little  Marius  stared  at  them 
with  frightened  eyes,  in  the  conviction  that  he  beheld  not 
women,  but  patriarchs  and  magi,  not  real  beings,  but 
phantoms. 


THE  GRANDFATHER  AND  TUE  GRANDSON      49 

With  these  phantoms,  priests  were  sometimes  mingled,  fre- 
quenters of  this  ancient  salon,  and  some  gentlemen;  the 
Marquis  de  Sass****,  private  secretary  to  Madame  de  Berry, 
the  Vicomte  de  Val***,  who  published,  under  the  pseudo- 
nyme  of  Charles- Antoine,  monorhymed  odes,  the  Prince  de 
Beauff* ****** }  who,  though  very  young,  had  a  gray  head  and 
a  pretty  and  witty  wife,  whose  very  low-necked  toilettes  of 
scarlet  velvet  with  gold  torsades  alarmed  these  shadows,  the 
Marquis  de  c*****d'E******,  the  man  in  all  France  who  best 
understood  "proportioned  politeness,"  the  Comte  d'Am*****, 
the  kindly  man  with  the  amiable  chin,  and  the  Chevalier  de 
Port-de-Guy,  a  pillar  of  the  library  of  the  Louvre,  called  the 
King's  cabinet,  M.  de  Port-de-Guy,  bald,  and  rather  aged  than 
old,  was  wont  to  relate  that  in  1793,  at  the  age  of  sixteen,  he 
had  been  put  in  the  galleys  as  refractory  and  chained  with  an 
octogenarian,  the  Bishop  of  Mirepoix,  also  refractory,  but  as 
a  priest,  while  he  was  so  in  the  capacity  of  a  soldier.  This  was 
at  Toulon.  Their  business  was  to  go  at  night  and  gather  up 
on  the  scaffold  the  heads  and  bodies  of  the  persons  who  had 
been  guillotined  during  the  day;  they  bore  away  on  their  backs 
these  dripping  corpses,  and  their  red  galley-slave  blouses  had  a 
clot  of  blood  at  the  back  of  the  neck,  which  was  dry  in  the 
morning  and  wet  at  night.  These  tragic  tales  abounded  in 
Madame  de  T.'s  salon,  and  by  dint  of  cursing  Marat,  they  ap- 
plauded Trestaillon.  Some  deputies  of  the  undiscoverable 
variety  played  their  whist  there;  M.  Thibord  du  Chalard,  M. 
Lemarchant  de  Gomicourt,  and  the  celebrated  scoffer  of  the 
right,  M.  Cornet-Dincourt.  The  bailiff  de  Ferrette,  with  his 
short  breeches  and  his  thin  legs,  sometimes  traversed  this 
salon  on  his  way  to  M.  de  Talleyrand.  He  had  been  M.  le 
Comte  d'Artois'  companion  in  pleasures  and  unlike  Aristotle 
crouching  under  Campaspe,  he  had  made  the  Guimard  crawl 
on  all  fours,  and  in  that  way  he  had  exhibited  to  the  ages  a 
philosopher  avenged  by  a  bailiff.  As  for  the  priests,  there 
was  the  Abbe  Halma,  the  same  to  whom  M.  Larose,  his  collab- 
orator on  la  Foudrc,  said :  "Bah !  Who  is  there  who  is  not 
fifty  years  old?  a  few  greenhorns  perhaps?"  The  Abbe 


50  MARIUS 

Letourneur,  preacher  to  the  King,  the  Abbe  Frayssinous,  who 
was  not,  as  yet,  either  count,  or  bishop,  or  minister,  or  peer,  and 
who  wore  an  old  cassock  whose  buttons  were  missing,  and  the 
Abbe  Keravenant,  Cure"  of  Saint-Germain-des-Pres ;  also  the 
Pope's  Nuncio,  then  Monsignor  Macchi,  Archbishop  of  Nisibi, 
later  on  Cardinal,  remarkable  for  his  long,  pensive  nose,  and 
another  Monsignor,  entitled  thus:  Abbate  Palmieri,  domes- 
tic prelate,  one  of  the  seven  participant  prothonotaries  of  the 
Holy  See,  Canon  of  the  illustrious  Liberian  basilica,  Advocate 
of  the  saints,  Postulatorc  del  Santi,  which  refers  to  matters  of 
canonization,  and  signifies  very  nearly :  Master  of  Requests  of 
the  section  of  Paradise.  Lastly,  two  cardinals,  M.  de  la  Lu- 
zerne,  and  M.  de  Cl******  T*******.  The  Cardinal  of 
Luzerne  was  a  writer  and  was  destined  to  have,  a  few  years 
later,  the  honor  of  signing  in  the  Conscrvatcur  articles  side  by 
side  with  Chateaubriand;  M.  de  Cl******  T*******  was 
Archbishop  of  Toul****,  and  often  made  trips  to  Paris,  to  his 
nephew,  the  Marquis  de  T*******,  who  was  Minister  of 
Marine  and  War.  The  Cardinal  of  Cl******  T*******  wns  a 
merry  little  man,  who  displayed  his  red  stockings  beneath  his 
tucked-up  cassock ;  his  specialty  was  a  hatred  of  the  Encyclo- 
paedia, and  his  desperate  play  at  billiards,  and  persons  who, 
at  that  epoch,  passed  through  the  Rue  M*****  on  summer 
evenings,  where  the  hotel  de  Cl******  T*******  then  stood, 
halted  to  listen  to  the  shock  of  the  balls  and  the  piercing  voice 
of  the  Cardinal  shouting  to  his  conclavist,  Monseigneur  Co- 
tiret,  Bishop  in  partibus  of  Carvste:  "Mark,  Abbe,  I  make  a 
cannon."  The  Cardinal  de  Cl******  T*******  had  been 
brought  to  Madame  de  T.'s  by  his  most  intimate  friend,  M.  de 
Roquelaure,  former  Bishop  of  Senlis,  and  one  of  the  Forty. 
M.  de  Roquelaure  was  notable  for  his  lofty  figure  and  his 
assiduity  at  the  Academy;  through  the  glass  door  of  the 
neighboring  hall  of  the  library  where  the  French  Academy 
then  held  its  meetings,  the  curious  could,  on  every  Tuesday, 
contemplate  the  Ex-Bishop  of  Senlis,  usually  standing  erect, 
freshly  powdered,  in  violet  hose,  with  his  back  turned  to  the 
door,  apparently  for  the  purpose  of  allowing  a  better  view  of 


THE  GRANDFATHER  AND  THE  GRANDSON  tft 

his  little  collar.  All  these  ecclesiastics,  though  for  the  most 
part  as  much  courtiers  as  churchmen,  added  to  the  gravity  of 
the  T.  salon,  whose  seigniorial  aspect  was  accentuated  by  five 
peers  of  France,  the  Marquis  de  Vib****,  the  Marquis  de 
Tal***,  the  Marquis  de  Herb*******,  the  Vicomte  Damb***, 
and  the  Due  de  Val********.  This  Due  de  Val********, 
although  Prince  de  Mon***,  that  is  to  say,  a  reigning  prince 
abroad,  had  so  high  an  idea  of  France  and  its  peerage,  that  he 
viewed  everything  through  their  medium.  It  was  he  who  said  : 
"The  Cardinals  are  the  peers  of  France  of  Rome;  the  lords 
are  the  peers  of  France  of  England."  Moreover,  as  it  is  indis- 
pensable that  the  Revolution  should  be  everywhere  in  this 
century,  this  feudal  salon  was,  as  we  have  said,  dominated  by 
a  bourgeois.  M.  Gillenormand  reigned  there. 

There  lay  the  essence  and  quintessence  of  the  Parisian  white 
society.  There  reputations,  even  Royalist  reputations,  were 
held  in  quarantine.  There  is  always  a  trace  of  anarchy  in 
renown.  Chateaubriand,  had  he  entered  there,  would  have 
produced  the  effect  of  Pere  Duchene.  Some  of  the  scoffed-at 
did,  nevertheless,  penetrate  thither  on  sufferance.  Comte 
Beug***  was  received  there,  subject  to  correction. 

The  "noble"  salons  of  the  present  day  no  longer  resemble 
those  salons.  The  Faubourg  Saint-Germain  reeks  of  the  fagot 
even  now.  The  Royalists  of  to-day  are  demagogues,  let  us 
record  it  to  their  credit. 

At  Madame  de  T.'s  the  society  was  superior,  taste  was  exquis- 
ite and  haughty,  under  the  cover  of  a  great  show  of  politeness. 
Manners  there  admitted  of  all  sorts  of  involuntary  refinements 
which  were  the  old  regime  itself,  buried  but  still  alive.  Some 
of  these  habits,  especially  in  the  matter  of  language,  seem 
eccentric.  Persons  but  superficially  acquainted  with  them 
would  have  taken  for  provincial  tbnt  which  was  only  antique. 
A  woman  was  called  Madame  la  Generate.  Madame  la  Colon- 
die  was  not  entirely  disused.  The  charming  Madame  de  Leon, 
in  memory,  no  doubt,  of  the  Duchesses  de  Longueville  and  de 
Chevreuse,  preferred  this  appellation  to  her  title  of  Princess. 
The  Marquise  de  Crequy  was  also  called  Madame  la  Colonelle. 


52  MARWB 

It  was  this  little  high  society  which  invented  at  the  Tuileries 
the  refinement  of  speaking  to  the  King  in  private  as  the  King, 
in  the  third  person,  and  never  as  Your  Majesty,  the  designa- 
tion of  Your  Majesty  having  been  "soiled  by  the  usurper." 

Men  and  deeds  were  brought  to  judgment  there.  They 
jeered  at  the  age,  which  released  them  from  the  necessity  of 
understanding  it.  They  abetted  each  other  in  amazement. 
They  communicated  to  each  other  that  modicum  of  light  which 
they  possessed.  Methuselah  bestowed  information  on  Epi- 
menides.  The  deaf  man  made  the  blind  man  acquainted  with 
the  course  of  things.  They  declared  that  the  time  which  had 
elasped  since  Coblentz  had  not  existed.  In  the  same  manner 
that  Louis  XVIII.  was  by  the  grace  of  God,  in  the  five  and 
twentieth  year  of  his  reign,  the  emigrants  were,  by  rights,  in 
the  five  and  twentieth  year  of  their  adolescence. 

All  was  harmonious;  nothing  was  too  much  alive;  speech 
hardly  amounted  to  a  breath;  the  newspapers,  agreeing  with 
the  salons,  seemed  a  papyrus.  There  were  some  young  people, 
but  they  were  rather  dead.  The  liveries  in  the  antechamber 
were  antiquated.  These  utterly  obsolete  personages  were 
served  by  domestics  of  the  same  stamp. 

They  all  had  the  air  of  having  lived  a  long  time  ago,  and  of 
obstinately  resisting  the  sepulchre.  Nearly  the  whole  diction- 
ary consisted  of  Conserver,  Conservation,  Conservateur;  to  be 
in  good  odor, — that  was  the  point.  There  are,  in  fact,  aro- 
matics  in  the  opinions  of  these  venerable  groups,  and  their 
ideas  smelled  of  it.  It  was  a  mummified  society.  The  mas- 
ters were  embalmed,  the  servants  were  stuffed  with  straw. 

A  worthy  old  marquise,  an  emigree  and  ruined,  who  had  but 
a  solitary  maid,  continued  to  say:  "My  people." 

What  did  they  do  in  Madame  de  T/s  salon?  They  were 
ultra. 

To  be  ultra ;  this  word,  although  what  it  represents  may  not 
have  disappeared,  has  no  longer  any  meaning  at  the  present 
day.  Let  us  explain  it. 

To  be  ultra  is  to  go  beyond.  It  is  to  attack  the  sceptre  in 
the  name  of  the  throne,  and  the  mitre  in  the  name  of  the  altar; 


THE  GRANDFATHER  AXD  THE  GRAXDKOV      53 

it  is  to  ill-treat  the  thing  which  one  is  dragging,  it  is  to  kick 
over  the  traces;  it  is  to  cavil  at  the  fagot  on  the  score  of  the 
amount  of  cooking  received  by  heretics;  it  is  to  reproach  the 
idol  with  its  small  amount  of  idolatry;  it  is  to  insult  through 
excess  of  respect;  it  is  to  discover  that  the  Pope  is  not  suffi- 
ciently papish,  that  the  King  is  not  sufficiently  royal,  and  that 
the  night  has  too  much  light;  it  is  to  be  discontented  with  ala- 
baster, with  snow,  with  the  swan  and  the  lily  in  the  name  of 
whiteness;  it  is  to  he  a  partisan  of  things  to  the  point  of 
becoming  their  enemy;  it  is  to  be  so  strongly  for,  as  to  be 
against. 

The  ultra  spirit  especially  characterizes  the  first  phase  of 
the  Restoration. 

Nothing  in  history  resembles  that  quarter  of  an  hour  which 
begins  in  1814  and  terminates  about  1820,  with  the  advent  of 
M.  de  Villele,  the  practical  man  of  the  Right.  These  six  years 
were  an  extraordinary  moment;  at  one  and  the  same  time 
brilliant  and  gloomy,  smiling  and  sombre,  illuminated  as  by 
the  radiance  of  dawn  and  entirely  covered,  at  the  same  time, 
with  the  shadows  of  the  great  catastrophes  which  still  filled  the 
horizon  and  were  slowly  sinking  into  the  past.  There  existed 
in  that  light  and  that  shadow,  a  complete  little  new  and  old 
world,  comic  and  sad,  juvenile  and  senile,  which  was  rubbing 
its  eyes;  nothing  resembles  an  awakening  like  a  return;  a 
group  which  regarded  France  with  ill-temper,  and  which 
France  regarded  with  irony ;  good  old  owls  of  marquises  by  the 
strcetful,  who  had  returned,  and  of  ghosts,  the  "former"  sub- 
jects of  amazement  at  everything,  brave  and  noble  gentlemen 
who  smiled  at  being  in  France  but  wept  also,  delighted  to  be- 
hold their  country  once  more,  in  despair  at  not  finding  their 
monarchy;  the  nobility  of  the  Crusades  treating  the  nobility  of 
the  Empire,  that  is  to  say,  the  nobility  of  the  sword,  with 
scorn ;  historic  races  who  had  lost  the  sense  of  history ;  the  sons 
of  the  companions  of  Charlemagne  disdaining  the  companions 
of  Napoleon.  The  swords,  as  we  have  just  remarked,  returned 
the  insult;  the  sword  of  Fontenoy  was  laughable  and  nothing 
but  a  scrap  of  rusty  iron;  the  sword  of  Mareugo  was  odious 


54  MARIU8 

and  was  only  a  sabre.  Former  days  did  not  recognize  Yester- 
day. People  no  longer  had  the  feeling  for  what  was  grand. 
There  was  some  one  who  called  Bonaparte  Scapin.  This  So- 
ciety no  longer  exists.  Nothing  of  it,  we  repeat,  exists  to-day. 
Wlien  we  select  from  it  some  one  figure  at  random,  and 
attempt  to  make  it  live  again  in  thought,  it  seems  as  strange 
to  us  as  the  world  before  the  Deluge.  It  is  because  it,  too, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  has  been  engulfed  in  a  deluge.  It  has 
disappeared  beneath  two  Revolutions.  What  billows  are  ideas! 
How  quickly  they  cover  all  that  it  is  their  mission  to  destroy 
and  to  bury,  and  how  promptly  they  create  frightful  gulfs! 

Such  was  the  physiognomy  of  the  salons  of  those  distant 
and  candid  times  when  M.  Martainville  had  more  wit  than 
Voltaire. 

These  salons  had  a  literature  and  politics  of  their  own. 
They  believed  in  Fievee.  M.  Agier  laid  down  the  law  in  them. 
They  commentated  M.  Colnet,  the  old  bookseller  and  publicist 
of  the  Quay  Malaquais.  Napoleon  was  to  them  thoroughly  the 
Corsican  Ogre.  Later  on  the  introduction  into  history  of  M.  le 
Marquis  de  Bonaparte,  Lieutenant-General  of  the  King's 
armies,  was  a  concession  to  the  spirit  of  the  age. 

These  salons  did  not  long  preserve  their  purity.  Beginning 
with  1818,  doctrinarians  began  to  spring  up  in  them,  a  dis- 
turbing shade.  Their  way  was  to  be  Royalists  and  to  excuse 
themselves  for  being  so.  Where  the  ultras  were  very  proud, 
the  doctrinarians  were  rather  ashamed.  They  had  wit;  they 
had  silence;  their  political  dogma  was  suitably  impregnated 
with  arrogance;  they  should  have  succeeded.  They  indulged, 
and  usefully  too,  in  excesses  in  the  matter  of  white  neckties 
and  tightly  buttoned  coats.  The  mistake  or  the  misfortune  of 
the  doctrinarian  party  was  to  create  aged  youth.  They  as- 
sumed the  poses  of  wise  men.  They  dreamed  of  engrafting  a 
temperate  power  on  the  absolute  and  excessive  principle.  They 
opposed,  and  sometimes  with  rare  intelligence,  conservative 
liberalism  to  the  liberalism  which  demolishes.  They  were 
heard  to  say:  "Thanks  for  Royalism  !  It  has  rendered  more 
than  one  service.  It  has  brought  back  tradition,  worship,  re- 


THE  GRANDFATHER  AND  THE  GRANDSON      55 

ligion,  respect.  It  is  faithful,  brave,  chivalric,  loving,  devoted. 
It  has  mingled,  though  with  regret,  the  secular  grandeurs  of 
the  monarchy  with  the  new  grandeurs  of  the  nation.  Its  mis- 
take is  not  to  understand  the  Revolution,  the  Empire,  glory, 
liberty,  young  ideas,  young  generations,  the  age.  But  this 
mistake  which  it  makes  with  regard  to  us, — have  we  not  some- 
times been  guilty  of  it  towards  them?  The  Revolution,  whose 
heirs  we  are,  ought  to  be  intelligent  on  all  points.  To  attack 
Royalism  is  a  misconstruction  of  liberalism.  What  an  error ! 
And  what  blindness !  Revolutionary  France  is  wanting  in 
respect  towards  historic  France,  that  is  to  say,  towards  its 
mother,  that  is  to  say,  towards  itself.  After  the  5th  of  Sep- 
tember, the  nobility  of  the  monarchy  is  treated  as  the  nobility 
of  the  Empire  was  treated  after  the  8th  of  July.  They  were 
unjust  to  the  eagle,  we  are  unjust  to  the  fleur-de-lys.  It  seems 
that  we  must  always  have  something  to  proscribe !  Does  it 
serve  any  purpose  to  ungild  the  crown  of  Louis  XIV.,  to  scrape 
the  coat  of  arms  of  Henry  IV.?  We  scoff  at  M.  de  Vaublanc 
for  erasing  the  N's  from  the  bridge  of  Jena  !  What  was  it  that 
he  did?  What  are  we  doing?  Bouvines  belongs  to  us  as  well 
as  Marengo.  The  fleurs-de-lys  are  ours  as  well  as  the  X's. 
That  is  our  patrimony.  To  what  purpose  shall  we  diminish 
it  ?  We  must  not  deny  our  country  in  the  past  any  more  than 
in  the  present.  Why  not  accept  the  whole  of  history?  Why 
not  love  the  whole  of  France  ? 

It  is  thus  that  doctrinarians  criticised  and  protected 
Royalism,  which  was  displeased  at  criticism  and  furious  at 
protection. 

The  ultras  marked  the  first  epoch  of  Royalism,  congregation 
characterized  the  second.  Skill  follows  ardor.  Let  us  confine 
ourselves  here  to  this  sketch. 

In  the  course  of  this  narrative,  the  author  of  this  book  has 
encountered  in  his  path  this  curious  moment  of  contemporary 
history ;  he  has  been  forced  to  cast  a  passing  glance  upon  it, 
and  to  trace  once  more  some  of  the  singular  features  of  this 
society  which  is  unknown  to-day.  But  he  does  it  rapidly  and 
without  any  bitter  or  derisive  idea.  Souvenirs  both  respectful 


56  MARIUS 

and  affectionate,  for  they  touch  his  mother,  attach  him  to  this 
past.  Moreover,  let  us  remark,  this  same  petty  world  had  a 
grandeur  of  its  own.  One  may  smile  at  it,  but  one  can  neither 
despise  nor  hate  it.  It  was  the  France  of  former  days. 

Marius  Pontmercy  pursued  some  studies,  as  all  children  do. 
When  he  emerged  from  the  hands  of  Aunt  Gillenormand,  his 
grandfather  confided  him  to  a  worthy  professor  of  the  most 
purely  classic  innocence.  This  young  soul  which  was  expand- 
ing passed  from  a  prude  to  a  vulgar  pedant. 

Marius  went  through  his  years  of  college,  then  he  entered 
the  law  school.  He  was  a  Royalist,  fanatical  and  severe.  He 
did  not  love  his  grandfather  much,  as  the  latter's  gayety  and 
cynicism  repelled  him,  and  his  feelings  towards  his  father 
were  gloomy. 

He  was,  on  the  whole,  a  cold  and  ardent,  noble,  generous, 
proud,  religious,  enthusiastic  lad;  Dignified  to  harshness,  pure 
to  shyness. 

CHAPTER   IV 

END  OF  THE   BRIGAND 

THE  conclusion  of  Marius'  classical  studies  coincided  with 
M.  Gillenormand's  departure  from  society.  The  old  man  bade 
farewell  to  the  Faubourg  Saint-Germain  and  to  Madame  de 
T.'s  salon,  and  established  himself  in  the  Marais,  in  his  house 
of  the  Rue  des  Filles-du-Calvaire.  There  he  had  for  servants, 
in  addition  to  the  porter,  that  chambermaid,  Nicolette,  who 
had  succeeded  to  Magnon,  and  that  short-breathed  and  pursy 
Basque,  who  have  been  mentioned  above. 

In  1827,  Marius  had  just  attained  his  seventeenth  year. 
One  evening,  on  his  return  home,  he  saw  his  grandfather  hold- 
ing a  letter  in  his  hand. 

"Marius,"  said  M.  Gillenormand,  "you  will  set  out  for  Ver- 
non  to-morrow. " 

"Why  ?"  said  Marius. 

"To  see  your  father." 


THE  GRANDFATHER  AND  THE  GRANDSON      57 

Marius  was  seized  with  a  trembling  fit.  He  had  thought  of 
everything  except  this — that  he  should  one  day  be  called  upon 
to  see  his  father.  Nothing  could  be  more  unexpected,  more 
surprising,  and,  let  us  admit  it,  more  disagreeable  to  him.  It 
was  forcing  estrangement  into  reconciliation.  It  was  not  an 
affliction,  but  it  was  an  unpleasant  duty. 

Marius,  in  addition  to  his  motives  of  political  antipathy,  was 
convinced  that  his  father,  the  slasher,  as  M.  Gillenormand 
called  him  on  his  amiable  days,  did  not  love  him;  this  was 
evident,  since  he  had  abandoned  him  to  others.  Feeling  that 
he  was  not  beloved,  he  did  not  love.  "Nothing  is  more  simple," 
he  said  to  himself. 

He  was  so  astounded  that  he  did  not  question  M.  Gillenor- 
mand. The  grandfather  resumed : — 

"It  appears  that  he  is  ill.    He  demands  your  presence." 

And  after  a  pause,  he  added : — 

"Set  out  to-morrow  morning.  I  think  there  is  a  coach  which 
leaves  the  Cour  des  Fontaines  at  six  o'clock,  and  which  arrives 
in  the  evening.  Take  it.  He  says  that  here  is  haste/' 

Then  he  crushed  the  letter  in  his  hand  and  thrust  it  into  his 
pocket.  Marius  might  have  set  out  that  very  evening  and  have 
been  with  his  father  on  the  following  morning.  A  diligence 
from  the  Rue  du  Bouloi  took  the  trip  to  Rouen  by  night  at 
that  date,  and  passed  through  Vernon.  Neither  Marius  nor 
M.  Gillenormand  thought  of  making  inquiries  about  it. 

The  next  day,  at  twilight,  Marius  reached  Vernon.  People 
were  just  beginning  to  light  their  candles.  He  asked  the  first 
person  whom  he  met  for  "M.  Pontmercy's  house."  For  in  his 
own  mind,  he  agreed  with  the  Restoration,  and  like  it,  did  not 
recognize  his  father's  claim  to  the  title  of  either  colonel  or 
baron. 

The  house  was  pointed  out  to  him.  He  rang;  a  woman  with 
a  little  lamp  in  her  hand  opened  the  door. 

"M.  Pontmercy?"  said  Marius. 

The  woman  remained  motionless. 

"Is  this  his  house?"  demanded  Marius. 

The  woman  nodded  affirmatively. 


58  MARIV8 

"Can  I  speak  with  him  ?" 

The  woman  shook  her  head. 

"But  I  am  his  son!"  persisted  Marius.  "He  is  expecting 
me." 

"He  no  longer  expects  you,"  said  the  woman. 

Then  he  perceived  that  she  was  weeping. 

She  pointed  to  the  door  of  a  room  on  the  ground-floor;  he 
entered. 

In  that  room,  which  was  lighted  by  a  tallow  candle  standing 
on  the  chimney-piece,  there  were  three  men,  one  standing 
erect,  another  kneeling,  and  one  lying  at  full  length,  on  the 
floor  in  his  shirt.  The  one  on  the  floor  was  the  colonel. 

The  other  two  were  the  doctor,  and  the  priest,  who  was 
engaged  in  prayer. 

The  colonel  had  been  attacked  by  brain  fever  three  days 
previously.  As  he  had  a  foreboding  of  evil  at  the  very  begin- 
ning of  his  illness,  he  had  written  to  M.  Gillenormand  to 
demand  his  son.  The  malady  had  grown  worse.  On  the  very 
evening  of  Marius'  arrival  at  Vernon,  the  colonel  had  had 
an  attack  of  delirium;  he  had  risen  from  his  bed,  in  spite  of 
the  servant's  efforts  to  prevent  him,  crying:  "My  son  is  not 
coming !  I  shall  go  to  meet  him !"  Then  he  ran  out  of  his 
room  and  fell  prostrate  on  the  floor  of  the  antechamber.  He 
had  just  expired. 

The  doctor  had  been  summoned,  and  the  cure.  The  doctor 
had  arrived  too  late.  The  son  had  also  arrived  too  late. 

By  the  dim  light  of  the  candle,  a  large  tear  could  be  distin- 
guished on  the  pale  and  prostrate  colonel's  cheek,  where  it  had 
trickled  from  his  dead  eye.  The  eye  was  extinguished,  but  the 
tear  was  not  yet  dry.  That  tear  was  his  son's  delay. 

Marius  gazed  upon  that  man  whom  he  beheld  for  the  first 
time,  on  that  venerable  and  manly  face,  on  those  open  eyes 
which  saw  not,  on  those  white  locks,  those  robust  limbs,  on 
which,  here  and  there,  brown  lines,  marking  sword-thrusts, 
and  a  sort  of  red  stars,  which  indicated  bullet-holes,  were 
visible.  He  contemplated  that  gigantic  scar  which  stamped 
heroism  on  that  countenance  upon  which  God  had  imprinted 


THE  GRANDFATHER  AND  THE  GRANDSON      59 

goodness.  He  reflected  that  this  man  was  his  father,  and  that 
this  man  was  dead,  and  a  chill  ran  over  him. 

The  sorrow  which  he  felt  was  the  sorrow  which  he  would 
have  felt  in  the  presence  of  any  other  man  whom  he  had 
chanced  to  behold  stretched  out  in  death. 

Anguish,  poignant  anguish,  was  in  that  chamber.  The 
servant-woman  was  lamenting  in  a  corner,  the  cure  was  pray- 
ing, and  his  sobs  were  audible,  the  doctor  was  wiping  his  eyes; 
the  corpse  itself  was  weeping. 

The  doctor,  the  priest,  and  the  woman  gazed  at  Marius  in 
the  midst  of  their  affliction  without  uttering  a  word;  he  was 
the  stranger  there.  Marius,  who  was  far  too  little  affected, 
felt  ashamed  and  embarrassed  at  his  own  attitude;  he  held 
his  hat  in  his  hand;  and  he  dropped  it  on  the  floor,  in  order 
to  produce  the  impression  that  grief  had  deprived  him  of  the 
strength  to  hold  it. 

At  the  same  time,  he  experienced  remorse,  and  he  despised 
himself  for  behaving  in  this  manner.  But  was  it  his  fault? 
He  did  not  love  his  father  ?  Why  should  he ! 

The  colonel  had  left  nothing.  The  sale  of  his  furniture 
barely  paid  the  expenses  of  his  burial. 

The  servant  found  a  scrap  of  paper,  which  she  handed  to 
Marius.  It  contained  the  following,  in  the  colonel's  hand- 
writing : — 

"For  my  son. — The  Emperor  made  me  a  Baron  on  the 
battle-field  of  Waterloo.  Since  the  Restoration  disputes  my 
right  to  this  title  which  I  purchased  with  my  blood,  my  son 
shall  take  it  and  bear  it.  That  he  will  be  worthy  of  it  is  a 
matter  of  course."  Below,  the  colonel  had  added :  "At  that 
same  battle  of  Waterloo,  a  sergeant  saved  my  life.  The  man's 
name  was  Thenardier.  I  think  that  he  has  recently  been  keep- 
ing a  little  inn,  in  a  village  in  the  neighborhood  of  Paris,  at 
Chelles  or  Montfermeil.  If  my  son  meets  him,  he  will  do  all 
the  good  he  can  to  Thenardier." 

Marius  took  this  paper  and  preserved  it,  not  out  of  duty  to 
his  father,  but  because  of  that  vague  respect  for  death  which 
is  always  imperious  in  the  heart  of  man. 


GO  MARIU8 

Nothing  remained  of  the  colonel.  M.  Gillenormand  had  his 
sword  and  uniform  sold  to  an  old-clothes  dealer.  The  neigh- 
bors devastated  the  garden  and  pillaged  the  rare  flowers.  The 
other  plants  turned  to  nettles  and  weeds,  and  died. 

Marius  remained  only  forty-eight  hours  at  Vernon.  After 
the  interment  he  returned  to  Paris,  and  applied  himself  again 
to  his  law  studies,  with  no  more  thought  of  his  father  than  if 
the  latter  had  never  lived.  In  two  days  the  colonel  was  buried, 
and  in  three  forgotten. 

Marius  wore  crape  on  his  hat.    That  was  alL 


CHAPTER  V 

THE    UTILITY    OF    GOING    TO    MASS,    IN    ORDER    TO    BECOME    A 
REVOLUTIONIST 

MARIUS  had  preserved  the  religious  habits  of  his  childhood. 
One  Sunday,  when  he  went  to  hear  mass  at  Saint-Sulpice,  at 
that  same  chapel  of  the  Virgin  whither  his  aunt  had  led  him 
when  a  small  lad.  he  placed  himself  behind  a  pillar,  being 
more  absent-minded  and  thoughtful  than  usual  on  that  occa- 
sion, and  knelt  down,  without  paying  any  special  heed,  upon 
a  chair  of  Utrecht  velvet,  on  the  back  of  which  was  inscribed 
this  name:  Monsieur  Mabeuf,  warden.  Mass  had  hardly 
begun  when  an  old  man  presented  himself  and  said  to 
Marius: — 

"This  is  my  place,  sir." 

Marius  stepped  aside  promptly,  and  the  old  man  took 
possession  of  his  chair. 

The  mass  concluded,  Marius  still  stood  thoughtfully  a  few 
paces  distant;  the  old  man  approached  him  again  and  said: — 

"I  beg  your  pardon,  sir,  for  having  disturbed  you  a  while 
ago,  and  for  again  disturbing  you  at  this  moment ;  you  must 
have  thought  me  intrusive,  and  I  will  explain  myself." 

"There  is  no  need  of  that,  sir."  said  Marius. 

"Yes !"  went  on  the  old  man,  "I  do  not  wish  you  to  have  a 
bad  opinion  of  me.  You  see,  I  am  attached  to  this  place.  It 


THE  GRANDFATHER  AND  THE  GRAXDHON      gj 

seems  to  me  that  the  mass  is  better  from  here.  Why  ?  I  will 
tell  you.  It  is  from  this  place,  that  I  have  watched  a  poor, 
brave  father  come  regularly,  every  two  or  three  months,  for 
the  last  ten  years,  since  he  had  no  other  opportunity  and  no 
other  way  of  seeing  his  child,  because  he  was  prevented  by 
family  arrangements.  He  came  at  the  hour  when  he  knew 
that  his  son  would  be  brought  to  mass.  The  little  one  never 
suspected  that  his  father  was  there.  Perhaps  he  did  not  even 
know  that  he  had  a  father,  poor  innocent !  The  father  kept 
behind  a  pillar,  so  that  he  might  not  be  seen,  lie  gazed  at 
his  child  and  he  wept.  He  adored  that  little  fellow,  poor 
man !  I  could  see  that.  This  spot  has  become  sanctified  in 
my  sight,  and  I  have  contracted  a  habit  of  coming  hither  to 
listen  to  the  mass.  I  prefer  it  to  the  stall  to  which  I  have  a 
right,  in  my  capacity  of  warden.  I  knew  that  unhappy  gentle- 
man a  little,  too.  He  had  a  father-in-law,  a  wealthy  aunt, 
relatives,  I  don't  know  exactly  what  all,  who  threatened  to 
disinherit  the  child  if  he,  the  father,  saw  him.  He  sacrificed 
himself  in  order  that  his  son  might  be  rich  and  happy  some 
day.  He  was  separated  from  him  because  of  political  opin- 
ions. Certainly,  I  approve  of  political  opinions,  but  there  are 
people  who  do  not  know  where  to  stop.  Mon  Dicu !  a  man 
is  not  a  monster  because  he  was  at  Waterloo ;  a  father  is  not 
separated  from  his  child  for  such  a  reason  as  that.  lie  was 
one  of  Bonaparte's  colonels.  He  is  dead,  I  believe.  He  lived 
at  Vernon,  where  I  have  a  brother  who  is  a  cure,  and  his 
name  was  something  like  Pontmarie  or  Montpercy.  He  had 
a  fine  sword-cut,  on  my  honor." 

"Pontmercy."  suggested  Marius,  turning  pale. 
"Precisely,  Pontmercy.     Did  you  know  him?" 
"Sir,"  said  Marius,  "he  was  my  father." 
The  old  warden  clasped  his  hands  and  exclaimed: — 
"Ah  !  you  are  the  child  !    Yes,  that's  true,  he  must  be  a  man 
by  this  time.     Well !  poor  child,  you  may  say  that  you  had  a 
father  who  loved  you  dearly  !" 

Marius  offered  his  arm  to  the  old  man  and  conducted  him 
to  his  lodgings. 


62  MARIU8 

On  the  following  day,  he  said  to  M.  Gillenormand : — 

"I  have  arranged  a  hunting-party  with  some  friends.  Will 
you  permit  me  to  be  absent  for  three  days?" 

"Four!"  replied  his  grandfather.  "Go  and  amuse  your- 
self." 

And  he  said  to  his  daughter  in  a  low  tone,  and  with  a  wink, 
"Some  love  affair!" 

CHAPTER   VI 

THE  CONSEQUENCES  OF  HAVING  MET  A  WARDEN 

WHERE  it  was  that  Marius  went  will  be  disclosed  a  little 
further  on. 

Marius  was  absent  for  three  days,  then  he  returned  to  Paris, 
went  straight  to  the  library  of  the  law-school  and  asked  for  the 
files  of  the  Moniteur. 

He  read  the  Moniteur,  he  read  all  the  histories  of  the  Re- 
public and  the  Empire,  the  Memorial  de  Sainte-Helene,  all 
the  memoirs,  all  the  newspapers,  the  bulletins,  the  proclama- 
tions;  he  devoured  everything.  The  first  time  that  he  came 
across  his  father's  name  in  the  bulletins  of  the  grand  army, 
he  had  a  fever  for  a  week.  He  went  to  see  the  generals  under 
whom  Georges  Pontmercy  had  served,  among  others,  Comte 
H.  Church-warden  Mabeuf,  whom  he  went  to  see  again,  told 
him  about  the  life  at  Vernon,  the  colonel's  retreat,  his  flowers, 
his  solitude.  Marius  came  to  a  full  knowledge  of  that  rare, 
sweet,  and  sublime  man,  that  species  of  lion-lamb  who  had 
been  his  father. 

In  the  meanwhile,  occupied  as  he  was  with  this  study  which 
absorbed  all  his  moments  as  well  as  his  thoughts,  he  hardly 
saw  the  Gillenormands  at  all.  He  made  his  appearance  at 
meals ;  then  they  searched  for  him,  and  he  was  not  to  be 
found.  Father  Gillenormand  smiled.  "Bah!  bah!  He  is 
just  of  the  age  for  the  girls  !"  Sometimes  the  old  man  added : 
"The  deuce !  I  thought  it  was  only  an  affair  of  gallantry. 
It  seems  that  it  is  an  affair  of  passion!" 


THE  GRANDFATHER  AND  THE  ORA\DSON  63 

It  was  a  passion,  in  fact.  Marius  was  on  the  high  road  to 
adoring  his  father. 

At  the  same  time,  his  ideas  underwent  an  extraordinary 
change.  The  phases  of  this  change  were  numerous  and  suc- 
cessive. As  this  is  the  history  of  many  minds  of  our  day,  we 
think  it  will  prove  useful  to  follow  these  phases  step  by  step 
and  to  indicate  them  all. 

That  history  upon  which  he  had  just  cast  his  eyes  appalled 
him. 

The  first  effect  was  to  dazzle  him. 

Up  to  that  time,  the  Republic,  the  Empire,  had  been  to  him 
only  monstrous  words.  The  Republic,  a  guillotine  in  the  twi- 
light ;  the  Empire,  a  sword  in  the  night.  He  had  just  taken  a 
look  at  it,  and  where  he  had  expected  to  find  only  a  chaos  of 
shadows,  he  had  beheld,  with  a  sort  of  unprecedented  surprise, 
mingled  with  fear  and  joy,  stars  sparkling,  Mirabeau,  Yerg- 
niaud,  Saint-Just,  Robespierre,  Camille,  Desmoulins,  Danton, 
and  a  sun  arise,  Napoleon.  He  did  not  know  where  he  stood. 
He  recoiled,  blinded  by  the  brilliant  lights.  Little  by  little, 
when  his  antonishment  had  passed  off.  he  grew  accustomed  to 
this  radiance,  he  contemplated  these  deeds  without  dizziness, 
he  examined  these  personages  without  terror;  the  Revolution 
and  the  Empire  presented  themselves  luminously,  in  perspec- 
tive, before  his  mind's  eye;  he  beheld  each  of  these  groups  of 
events  and  of  men  summed  up  in  two  tremendous  facts :  the 
Republic  in  the  sovereignty  of  civil  right  restored  to  the 
masses,  the  Empire  in  the  sovereignty  of  the  French  idea 
imposed  on  Europe;  he  beheld  the  grand  figure  of  the  people 
emerge  from  the  Revolution,  and  the  grand  figure  of  France 
spring  forth  from  the  Empire.  He  asserted  in  his  conscience, 
that  all  this  had  been  good.  What  his  dazzled  state  neglected 
in  this,  his  first  far  too  synthetic  estimation,  we  do  not  think 
it  necessary  to  point  out  here.  It  is  the  state  of  a  mind  on  the 
march  that  we  are  recording.  Progress  is  not  accomplished 
in  one  stage.  That  stated,  once  for  all,  in  connection  with 
what  precedes  as  well  as  with  what  is  to  follow,  we  con- 
tinue. 


(J4  MARIU8 

He  then  perceived  that,  up  to  that  moment,  he  had  compre- 
hended his  country  no  more  than  he  had  comprehended  his 
father.  He  had  not  known  either  the  one  or  the  other,  and  a 
sort  of  voluntary  night  had  obscured  his  eyes.  Now  he  saw, 
and  on  the  one  hand  he  admired,  while  on  the  other  he 
adored. 

He  was  filled  with  regret  and  remorse,  and  he  reflected  in 
despair  that  all  he  had  in  his  soul  could  now  he  said  only  to  the 
tomb.  Oh !  if  his  father  had  still  been  in  existence,  if  he  had 
still  had  him,  if  God,  in  his  compassion  and  his  goodness,  had 
permitted  his  father  to  be  still  among  the  living,  how  he  would 
have  run,  how  he  would  have  precipitated  himself,  how  he 
would  have  cried  to  his  father :  "Father !  Here  I  am  !  It  is  I ! 
I  have  the  same  heart  as  thou !  I  am  thy  son !"  How  he 
would  have  embraced  that  white  head,  bathed  his  hair  in  tears, 
gazed  upon  his  scar,  pressed  his  hands,  adored  his  garment, 
kissed  his  feet !  Oh !  Why  had  his  father  died  so  early, 
before  his  time,  before  the  justice,  the  love  of  his  son  had 
come  to  him?  Marius  had  a  continual  sob  in  his  heart,  which 
said  to  him  every  moment :  "Alas !"  At  the  same  time,  he 
became  more  truly  serious,  more  truly  grave,  more  sure  of 
his  thought  and  his  faith.  At  each  instant,  gleams  of  the 
true  came  to  complete  his  reason.  An  inward  growth  seemed 
to  be  in  progress  within  him.  He  was  conscious  of  a  sort  of 
natural  enlargement,  which  gave  him  two  things  that  were 
new  to  him — his  father  and  his  country. 

As  everything  opens  when  one  has  a  key,  so  he  explained  to 
himself  that  which  he  had  hated,  he  penetrated  that  which  he 
had  abhorred ;  henceforth  he  plainly  perceived  the  provi- 
dential, divine  and  human  sense  of  the  great  things  which 
he  had  been  taught  to  detest,  and  of  the  great  men  whom  he 
had  been  instructed  to  curse.  When  he  reflected  on  his  former 
opinions,  which  were  but  those  of  yesterday,  and  which,  never- 
theless, seemed  to  him  already  so  very  ancient,  he  grew  indig- 
nant, yet  he  smiled. 

From  the  rehabilitation  of  his  father,  he  naturally  passed  to 
the  rehabilitation  of  Napoleon. 


THE  GRANDFATHER  AND  THE  (JKAND80N  (-5 

But  the  latter,  we  will  confess,  was  not  effected  without 
labor. 

From  his  infancy,  he  had  been  imbued  with  the  judgments 
of  the  party  of  1814.  on  Bonaparte.  Now,  all  the  prejudices  of 
the  Restoration,  all  its  interests,  all  its  instincts  tended  to  dis- 
figure Napoleon.  It  execrated  him  even  more  than  it  did 
Robespierre.  It  had  very  cleverly  turned  to  sufficiently  good 
account  the  fatigue  of  the  nation,  and  the  hatred  of  mothers. 
Bonaparte  had  become  an  almost  fabulous  monster,  and  in 
order  to  paint  him  to  the  imagination  of  the  people,  which, 
as  we  lately  pointed  out,  resembles  the  imagination  of  chil- 
dren, the  party  of  1814  made  him  appear  under  all  sorts  of 
terrifying  masks  in  succession,  from  that  which  is  terrible 
though  it  remains  grandiose  to  that  which  is  terrible  and 
becomes  grotesque,  from  Tiberius  to  the  bugaboo.  Thus,  in 
speaking  of  Bonaparte,  one  was  free  to  sob  or  to  puff  up  with 
laughter,  provided  that  hatred  lay  at  the  bottom.  Marius  had 
never  entertained — about  that  man,  as  he  was  called — any 
other  ideas  in  his  mind.  They  had  combined  with  the  tenacity 
which  existed  in  his  nature.  There  was  in  him  a  headstrong 
little  man  who  hated  Napoleon. 

On  reading  history,  on  studying  him,  especially  in  the  docu- 
ments and  materials  for  history,  the  veil  which  concealed 
Napoleon  from  the  eyes  of  Marius  was  gradually  rent.  He 
caught  a  glimpse  of  something  immense,  and  he  suspected 
that  he  had  been  deceived  up  to  that  moment,  on  the  score 
of  Bonaparte  as  about  all  the  rest ;  each  day  he  saw  more 
distinctly;  and  he  set  about  mounting,  slowly,  step  by  step, 
almost  regretfully  in  the  beginning,  then  with  intoxication 
and  as  though  attracted  by  an  irresistible  fascination,  first  the 
sombre  steps,  then  the  vaguely  illuminated  steps,  at  last  the 
luminous  and  splendid  steps  of  enthusiasm. 

One  night,  he  was  alone  in  his  little  chamber  near  the  roof. 
His  candle  was  biirning;  he  was  reading,  with  his  elbows  rest- 
ing on  his  table  close  to  the  open  window.  All  sorts  of  reveries 
reached  him  from  space,  and  mingled  with  his  thoughts. 
What  a  spectacle  is  the  night !  One  hears  dull  sounds,  without 


66  MARIU8 

knowing  whence  they  proceed ;  one  beholds  Jupiter,  which  is 
twelve  hundred  times  larger  than  the  earth,  glowing  like  a 
firebrand,  the  azure  is  black,  the  stars  shine ;  it  is  formidable. 

He  was  perusing  the  bulletins  of  the  grand  army,  those 
heroic  strophes  penned  on  the  field  of  battle ;  there,  at  inter- 
vals, he  beheld  his  father's  name,  always  the  name  of  the 
Emperor;  the  whole  of  that  great  Empire  presented  itself  to 
him ;  he  felt  a  flood  swelling  and  rising  within  him;  it  seemed 
to  him  at  moments  that  his  father  passed  close  to  him  like  a 
breath,  and  whispered  in  his  ear;  he  gradually  got  into  a 
singular  state;  he  thought  that  he  heard  drums,  cannon, 
trumpets,  the  measured  tread  of  battalions,  the  dull  and 
distant  gallop  of  the  cavalry ;  from  time  to  time,  his  eyes 
were  raised  heavenward,  and  gazed  upon  the  colossal  constella- 
tions as  they  gleamed  in  the  measureless  depths  of  space,  then 
they  fell  upon  his  book  once  more,  and  there  they  beheld  other 
colossal  things  moving  confusedly.  His  heart  contracted 
within  him.  He  was  in  a  transport,  trembling,  panting.  All 
at  once,  without  himself  knowing  what  was  in  him,  and  what 
impulse  he  was  obeying,  he  sprang  to  his  feet,  stretched  both 
arms  out  of  the  window,  gazed  intently  into  the  gloom,  the 
silence,  the  infinite  darkness,  the  eternal  immensity,  and  ex- 
claimed :  "Long  live  the  Emperor !" 

From  that  moment  forth,  all  was  over ;  the  Ogre  of  Corsica, 
— the  usurper, — the  tyrant, — the  monster  who  was  the  lover 
of  his  own  sisters, — the  actor  who  took  lessons  of  Talma, — 
the  poisoner  of  Jaffa, — the  tiger, — Buonaparte, — all  this  van- 
ished, and  gave  place  in  his  mind  to  a  vague  and  brilliant  radi- 
ance in  which  shone,  at  an  inaccessible  height,  the  pale  marble 
phantom  of  Ca?sar.  The  Emperor  had  been  for  his  father  only 
the  well-beloved  captain  whom  one  admires,  for  whom  one  sac- 
rifices one's  self;  he  was  something  more  to  Marius.  He  was 
the  predestined  constructor  of  the  French  group,  succeeding 
the  Koman  group  in  the  domination  of  the  universe.  He  was 
a  prodigious  architect,  of  a  destruction,  the  continuer  of 
Charlemagne,  of  Louis  XL,  of  Henry  IV.,  of  Richelieu,  of 
Louis  XIV.,  and  of  the  Committee  of  Public  Safety,  having 


THE  GRANDFATHER  AND  THE  VRANDHON      67 

his  spots,  no  doubt,  his  faults,  his  crimes  even,  being  a  man, 
that  is  to  say;  but  august  in  his  faults,  brilliant  in  his  spots, 
powerful  in  his  crime. 

He  was  the  predestined  man,  who  had  forced  all  nations  to 
say :  "The  great  nation !"  He  was  better  than  that,  he  was 
the  very  incarnation  of  France,  conquering  Europe  by  the 
sword  which  he  grasped,  and  the  world  by  the  light  which  he 
shed.  Marius  saw  in  Bonaparte  the  dazzling  spectre  which 
will  always  rise  upon  the  frontier,  and  which  will  guard  the 
future.  Despot  but  dictator ;  a  despot  resulting  from  a  repub- 
lic and  summing  up  a  revolution.  Napoleon  became  for  him 
the  man-people  as  Jesus  Christ  is  the  man-God. 

It  will  be  perceived,  that  like  all  new  converts  to  a  religion, 
his  conversion  intoxicated  him,  he  hurled  himself  headlong 
into  adhesion  and  he  went  too  far.  His  nature  was  so  con- 
structed; once  on  the  downward  slope,  it  was  almost  impos- 
sible for  him  to  put  on  the  drag.  Fanaticism  for  the  sword 
took  possession  of  him,  and  complicated  in  his  mind  his 
enthusiasm  for  the  idea.  He  did  not  perceive  that,  along  with 
genius,  and  pell-mell,  he  was  admitting  force,  that  is  to  say, 
that  he  was  installing  in  two  compartments  of  his  idolatry, 
on  the  one  hand  that  which  is  divine,  on  the  other  that  which 
is  brutal.  In  many  respects,  he  had  set  about  deceiving 
himself  otherwise.  He  admitted  everything.  There  is  a  way 
of  encountering  error  while  on  one's  way  to  the  truth.  He 
had  a  violent  sort  of  good  faith  which  took  everything  in  the 
lump.  In  the  new  path  which  he  had  entered  on,  in  judging 
the  mistakes  of  the  old  regime,  as  in  measuring  the  glory  of 
Napoleon,  he  neglected  the  attenuating  circumstances. 

At  all  events,  a  tremendous  step  had  been  taken.  Where  he 
had  formerly  beheld  the  fall  of  the  monarchy,  he  now  saw  the 
advent  of  France.  His  orientation  had  changed.  What  had 
been  his  East  became  the  West.  He  had  turned  squarely 
round. 

All  these  revolutions  were  accomplished  within  him,  with- 
out his  family  obtaining  an  inkling  of  the  case. 

When,  during  this  mysterious  labor,  he  had  entirely  shed 


68  MARIU8 

his  old  Bourbon  and  ultra  skin,  when  he  had  cast  off  the 
aristocrat,  the  Jacobite  and  the  Royalist,  when  he  had  become 
thoroughly  a  revolutionist,  profoundly  democratic  and  repub- 
lican, he  went  to  an  engraver  on  the  Quai  des  Orfevres  and 
ordered  a  hundred  cards  bearing  this  name :  Le  Baron  Marius 
Pontmcrcy. 

This  was  only  the  strictly  logical  consequence  of  the  change 
which  had  taken  place  in  him,  a  change  in  which  everything 
gravitated  round  his  father. 

Only,  as  he  did  not  know  any  one  and  could  not  sow  his 
cards  with  any  porter,  he  put  them  in  his  pocket. 

By  another  natural  consequence,  in  proportion  as  he  drew 
nearer  to  his  father,  to  the  latter's  memory,  and  to  the  things 
for  which  the  colonel  had  fought  five  and  twenty  years  before, 
he  receded  from  his  grandfather.  We  have  long  ago  said,  that 
M.  Gillenormand's  temper  did  not  please  him.  There  already 
existed  between  them  all  the  dissonances  of  the  grave  young 
man  and  the  frivolous  old  man.  The  gayety  of  Geronte  shocks 
and  exasperates  the  melancholy  of  Werther.  So  long  as  the 
same  political  opinions  and  the  same  ideas  had  been  common 
to  them  both,  Marius  had  met  M.  Gillenormand  there  as  on  a 
bridge.  When  the  bridge  fell,  an  abyss  was  formed.  And 
then,  over  and  above  all,  Marius  experienced  unutterable  im- 
pulses to  revolt,  when  he  reflected  that  it  was  M.  Gillenormand 
who  had,  from  stupid  motives,  torn  him  ruthlessly  from  the 
colonel,  thus  depriving  the  father  of  the  child,  and  the  child 
of  the  father. 

By  dint  of  pity  for  his  father,  Marius  had  nearly  arrived  at 
aversion  for  his  grandfather. 

Nothing  of  this  sort,  however,  was  betrayed  on  the  exterior, 
as  we  have  already  said.  Only  he  grew  colder  and  colder; 
laconic  at  meals,  and  rare  in  the  house.  When  his  aunt 
scolded  him  for  it,  he  was  very  gentle  and  alleged  his  studies, 
his  lectures,  the  examinations,  etc.,  as  a  pretext.  His  grand- 
father never  departed  from  his  infallible  diagnosis:  "In  love! 
I  know  all  about  it." 

From  time  to  time  Marius  absented  himself. 


THE  GRANDFATHER  AND  THE  GRANDSON      (59 

"Where  is  it  that  he  goes  off  like  this?"  said  his  aunt. 

On  one  of  these  trips,  which  were  always  very  brief,  he 
went  to  Montfermeil,  in  order  to  obey  the  injunction  which 
his  father  had  left  him.  and  he  sought  the  old  sergeant  to 
Waterloo,  the  inn-keeper  Thenardier.  Thenardier  had  failed, 
the  inn  was  closed,  and  no  one  knew  what  had  become  of  him. 
Marius  was  away  from  the  house  for  four  days  on  this  quest. 

"He  is  getting  decidedly  wild,"  said  his  grandfather. 

They  thought  they  had  noticed  that  he  wore  something  on 
his  breast,  under  his  shirt,  which  was  attached  to  his  neck  by 
a  black  ribbon. 

CHAPTER   VII 

SOME  PETTICOAT 

WE  have  mentioned  a  lancer. 

He  was  a  great-grand-nephew  of  M.  Gillenormand,  on  the 
paternal  side,  who  led  a  garrison  life,  outside  the  family  and 
far  from  the  domestic  hearth.  Lieutenant  Theodule  Gille- 
normand fulfilled  all  the  conditions  required  to  make  what  is 
called  a  fine  officer.  He  had  "a  lady's  waist,"  a  victorious 
manner  of  trailing  his  sword  and  of  twirling  his  mustache 
in  a  hook.  He  visited  Paris  very  rarely,  and  so  rarely  that 
Marius  had  never  seen  him.  The  cousins  knew  each  other 
only  by  name.  We  think  we  have1  said  that  Theodule  was  the 
favorite  of  Aunt  Gillenormand,  who  preferred  him  because 
she  did  not  see  him.  Not  seeing  people  permits  one  to  attribute 
to  them  all  possible  perfections. 

One  morning.  Mademoiselle  Gillenormand  the  elder  re- 
turned to  her  apartment  as  much  disturbed  as  her  placidity 
was  capable  of  allowing.  Marius  had  just  asked  his  grand- 
father's permission  to  take  a  little  trip,  adding  that  he  meant 
to  set  out  that  very  evening.  "Go !"  had  been  his  grand- 
father's reply,  and  M.  Gillenormand  had  added  in  an  aside, 
as  he  raised  his  eyebrows  to  the  top  of  his  forehead :  "Here 
he  is  passing  the  night  out  again."  Mademoiselle  Gillenor- 


70  MAR1U8 

mand  had  ascended  to  her  chamber  greatly  puzzled,  and  on 
the  staircase  had  dropped  this  exclamation :  "This  is  too 
much!" — and  this  interrogation:  "But  where  is  it  that  he 
goes  ?"  She  espied  some  adventure  of  the  heart,  more  or  less 
illicit,  a  woman  in  the  shadow,  a  rendezvous,  a  mystery,  and 
she  would  not  have  been  sorry  to  thrust  her  spectacles  into 
the  affair.  Tasting  a  mystery  resembles  getting  the  first  flavor 
of  a  scandal:  sainted  souls  do  not  detest  this.  There  is  some 
curiosity  about  scandal  in  the  secret  compartments  of  bigotry. 

So  she  was  the  prey  of  a  vague  appetite  for  learning  a 
history. 

In  order  to  get  rid  of  this  curiosity  which  agitated  her  a 
little  beyond  her  wont,  she  took  refuge  in  her  talents,  and  set 
about  scalloping,  with  one  layer  of  cotton  after  another,  one 
of  those  embroideries  of  the  Empire  and  the  Restoration,  in 
which  there  are  numerous  cart-wheels.  The  work  was  clumsy, 
the  worker  cross.  She  had  been  seated  at  this  for  several 
hours  when  the  door  opened.  Mademoiselle  Gillenormand 
raised  her  nose.  Lieutenant  Theodule  stood  before  her, 
making  the  regulation  salute.  She  uttered  a  cry  of  delight. 
One  may  be  old,  one  may  be  a  prude,  one  may  be  pious,  one 
may  be  an  aunt,  but  it  is  always  agreeable  to  see  a  lancer  enter 
one's  chamber. 

"You  here,  Theodule !"  she  exclaimed. 

"On  my  way  through  town,  aunt." 

"Embrace  me." 

"Here  goes !"  said  Theodule. 

And  he  kissed  her.  Aunt  Gillenormand  went  to  her 
writing-desk  and  opened  it. 

"You  will  remain  with  us  a  week  at  least?" 

"I  leave  this  very  evening,  aunt." 

"It  is  not  possible !" 

"Mathematically !" 

"Remain,  my  little  Theodule,  I  beseech  you." 

"My  heart  says  'yes,'  but  my  orders  say  'no.'  The  matter 
is  simple.  They  are  changing  our  garrison;  we  have  been  at 
Melun.  we  are  being  transferred  to  Gaillon.  It  is  necessary 


THE  GRANDFATHER  AND  THE  (JRAXDUON  ^\ 

to  pass  through  Paris  in  order  to  get  from  the  old  post  to 
the  new  one.  I  said:  'I  am  going  to  see  my  aunt.": 

"Here  is  something  for  your  trouble." 

And  she  put  ten  louis  into  his  hand. 

"For  my  pleasure,  you  mean  to  say,  my  dear  aunt." 

Theodule  kissed  her  again,  and  she  experienced  the  joy  of 
having  some  of  the  skin  scratched  from  her  neck  by  the  braid- 
ings on  his  uniform. 

"Are  you  making  the  journey  on  horseback,  with  your 
regiment  ?"  she  asked  him. 

"Xo,  aunt.  I  wanted  to  see  you.  I  have  special  permis- 
sion. My  servant  is  taking  my  horse;  I  am  travelling  by 
diligence.  And,  by  the  way,  I  want  to  ask  you  something." 

"What  is  it?" 

"Is  my  cousin  Marius  Pontmercy  travelling  so,  too?" 

"How  do  you  know  that  ?"  said  his  aunt,  suddenly  pricked 
to  the  quick  with  a  lively  curiosity. 

"On  my  arrival,  I  went  to  the  diligence  to  engage  my  seat 
in  the  coupe." 

"Well  ?" 

"A  traveller  had  already  come  to  engage  a  seat  in  the  im- 
perial. I  saw  his  name  on  the  card." 

"What  name  ?" 

"Marius  Pontmercy." 

"The  wicked  fellow !"  exclaimed  his  aunt.  "Ah !  your 
cousin  is  not  a  steady  lad  like  yourself.  To  think  that  he  is 
to  pass  the  night  in  a  diligence !" 

"Just  as  I  am  going  to  do." 

"But  you — it  is  your  duty ;  in  his  case,  it  is  wildness." 

"Bosh !"  said  Theodule. 

Here  an  event  occurred  to  Mademoiselle  Gillenormand  the 
elder, — an  idea  struck  her.  If  she  had  been  a  man.  she  would 
have  slapped  her  brow.  She  apostrophized  Theodule : — 

"Are  you  aware  whether  your  cousin  knows  you?'' 

"Xo.  1  have  seen  him;  but  he  has  never  deigned  to  notice 
me." 

"So  you  are  going  to  travel  together?" 


72  M  ARIL'S 

"He  in  the  imperial.  I  in  the  coupe." 

"Where  does  this  diligence  run?" 

"To  Andelys." 

"Then  that  is  where  Marius  is  going?" 

"Unless,  like  myself,  he  should  stop  on  the  way.  T  get  down 
at  Vernon,  in  order  to  take  the  branch  coach  for  Gaillon.  I 
know  nothing  of  Marius'  plan  of  travel." 

"Marius !  what  an  ugly  name !  what  possessed  them  to  name 
him  Marius?  While  you,  at  least,  are  called  Theodule." 

"I  would  rather  be  called  Alfred,"  said  the  officer. 

"Listen,  Theodule." 

"I  am  listening,  aunt." 

"Pay  attention." 

"I  am  paying  attention." 

"You  understand?" 

"Yes." 

"Well,  Marius  absents  himself." 

"Eh !  eh !" 

"He  travels." 

"Ah !  ah !" 

"He  spends  the  night  out." 

"Oh !  oh !" 

"We  should  like  to  know  what  there  is  behind  all  this." 

Theodule  replied  with  the  composure  of  a  man  of  bronze : — 

"Some  petticoat  or  other." 

And  with  that  inward  laugh  which  denotes  certainty,  he 
added : — 

"A  lass." 

"That  is  evident,"  exclaimed  his  aunt,  who  thought  she 
heard  M.  Gillenormand  speaking,  and  who  felt  her  conviction 
become  irresistible  at  that  word  fillette,  accentuated  in  almost 
the  very  same  fashion  by  the  grand-uncle  and  the  grand- 
nephew.  She  resumed : — 

"Do  us  a  favor.  Follow  Marius  a  little.  He  does  not  know 
you,  it  will  be  easy.  Since  a  lass  there  is,  try  to  get  a  sight  of 
her.  You  must  write  us  the  tale.  It  will  amuse  his  grand- 
father." 


THE  GR A \DFATHER  AND  TllK  GRAXDttOX  73 

Theodule  had  no  excessive  taste  for  this  sort  of  spying ;  hut 
he  was  much  touched  by  the  ten  louis,  and  he  thought  he  saw 
a  chance  for  a  possible  sequel.  He  accepted  the  commission 
and  said :  "As  you  please,  aunt." 

And  he  added  in  an  aside,  to  himself:  "Here  I  am  a 
duenna." 

Mademoiselle  Gillenormand  embraced  him. 

"You  are  not  the  man  to  play  such  pranks,  Theodule.  You 
obey  discipline,  you  are  the  slave  of  orders,  you  are  a  man  of 
scruples  and  duty,  and  you  would  not  quit  your  family  to  go 
and  see  a  creature." 

The  lancer  made  the  pleased  grimace  of  Cartouche  when 
praised  for  his  probity. 

Marius,  on  the  evening  following  this  dialogue,  mounted  the 
diligence  without  suspecting  that  he  was  watched.  As  for  the 
watcher,  the  first  thing  he  did  was  to  fall  asleep.  His  slumber 
was  complete  and  conscientious.  Argus  snored  all  night  long. 

At  daybreak,  the  conductor  of  the  diligence  shouted:  "Ver- 
non  !  relay  of  Vernon  !  Travellers  for  Vernon  !"  And  Lieu- 
tenant Theodule  woke. 

"Good,"  he  growled,  still  half  asleep,  "this  is  where  I  get 
out." 

Then,  as  his  memory  cleared  by  degrees,  the  effect  of  wak- 
ing, he  recalled  his  aunt,  the  ten  louis,  and  the  account  which 
he  had  undertaken  to  render  of  the  deeds  and  proceedings  of 
Marius.  This  set  him  to  laughing. 

"Perhaps  he  is  no  longer  in  the  coach,"  he  thought,  as  he 
rebuttoned  the  waistcoat  of  his  undress  uniform.  "He  may 
have  stopped  at  Poissy;  he  may  have  stopped  at  Triel ;  if  he 
did  not  get  out  at  Meulan,  he  may  have  got  out  at  Mantes,  un- 
less he  got  out  at  Kolleboise,  or  if  he  did  not  go  on  as  far  as 
Pacy,  with  the  choice  of  turning  to  the  left  at  fivreus,  or  to 
the  right  at  Laroche-Guyon.  Run  after  him,  aunty.  What  the 
devil  am  1  to  write  to  that  good  old  soul  ?" 

At  that  moment  a  pair  of  black  trousers  descending  from 
the  imperial,  made  its  appearance  at  the  window  of  the 
coupe. 


74  MAKIUS 

"Can  that  be  Marius  ?"  said  the  lieutenant. 

It  was  Marius. 

A  little  peasant  girl,  all  entangled  with  the  horses  and  the 
postilions  at  the  end  of  the  vehicle,  was  offering  flowers  to  the 
travellers.  "Give  your  ladies  flowers !"  she  cried. 

Marius  approached  her  and  purchased  the  finest  flowers  in 
her  flat  basket. 

"Come  now,"  said  Theodule,  leaping  down  from  the  coupe, 
"this  piques  my  curiosity.  Who  the  deuce  is  he  going  to 
carry  those  flowers  to?  She  must  be  a  splendidly  handsome 
woman  for  so  fine  a  bouquet.  I  want  to  see  her." 

And  no  longer  in  pursuance  of  orders,  but  from  personal 
curiosity,  like  dogs  who  hunt  on  their  own  account,  he  set  out 
to  follow  Marius. 

Marius  paid  no  attention  to  Theodule.  Elegant  women  de- 
scended from  the  diligence;  he  did  not  glance  at  them.  He 
seemed  to  see  nothing  around  him. 

"He  is  pretty  deeply  in  love !''  thought  Theodule. 

Marius  directed  his  steps  towards  the  church. 

"Capital,"  said  Theodule  to  himself.  "Rendezvous  sea- 
soned with  a  bit  of  mass  are  the  best  sort.  Nothing  is  so 
exquisite  as  an  ogle  which  passes  over  the  good  Cod's  head." 

On  arriving  at  the  church,  Marius  did  not  enter  it,  but 
skirted  the  apse.  He  disappeared  behind  one  of  the  angles  of 
the  apse. 

"The  rendezvous  is  appointed  outside,"  said  Theodule. 
"Let's  have  a  look  at  the  lass." 

And  he  advanced  on  the  tips  of  his  boots  towards  the  comer 
which  Marius  had  turned. 

On  arriving  there,  he  halted  in  amazement. 

Marius,  with  his  forehead  clasped  in  his  hands,  was  kneeling 
upon  the  grass  on  a  grave.  He  had  strewn  his  bouquet  there. 
At  the  extremity  of  the  grave,  on  a  little  swelling  which 
marked  the  head,  there  stood  a  cross  of  black  wood  with  this 
name  in  white  letters:  COLONEL  BARON  PONTMERCY.  Marius' 
sobs  were  audible. 

The  "lass"  was  a  grave. 


THE  GRANDFATHER  AND  THE  URAND80N      75 


CHAPTER    VIII 

MARBLE    AGAINST    GRANITE 

IT  was  hither  that  Marius  had  come  on  the  first  occasion  of 
his  absenting  himself  from  Paris.  It  was  hither  that  lie  had 
come  every  time  that  M.  Gillenormand  had  said  :  "He  is  sleep- 
ing out." 

Lieutenant  Theodule  was  absolutely  put  out  of  countenance 
by  this  unexpected  encounter  with  a  sepulchre;  he  experienced 
a  singular  and  disagreeable  sensation  which  he  was  incapable 
of  analyzing,  and  which  was  composed  of  respect  for  the  tomb, 
mingled  with  respect  for  the  colonel.  He  retreated,  leaving 
Marius  alone  in  the  cemetery,  and  there  was  discipline  in  this 
retreat.  Death  appeared  to  him  with  large  epaulets,  and  he 
almost  made  the  military  salute  to  him.  Not  knowing  what 
to  write  to  his  aunt,  he  decided  not  to  write  at  all ;  and  it  is 
probable  that  nothing  would  have  resulted  from  the  discovery 
made  by  Theodule  as  to  the  love  affairs  of  Marius,  if,  by  one  of 
those  mysterious  arrangements  which  are  so  frequent  in 
chance,  the  scene  at  Vernon  had  not  had  an  almost  immediate 
counter-shock  at  Paris. 

Marius  returned  from  Vernon  on  the  third  day,  in  the  mid- 
dle of  the  morning,  descended  at  his  grandfather's  door,  and, 
wearied  by  the  two  nights  spent  in  the  diligence,  and  feeling 
the  need  of  repairing  his  loss  of  sleep  by  an  hour  at  the  swim- 
ming-school, he  mounted  rapidly  to  his  chamber,  took  merely 
time  enough  to  throw  off  his  travelling-coat,  and  the  black 
ribbon  which  he  wore  round  his  neck,  and  went  off  to  the 
bath. 

M.  Gillenormand,  who  had  risen  betimes  like  all  old  men  in 
good  health,  had  heard  his  entrance,  and  had  made  haste  to 
climb,  as  quickly  as  his  old  legs  permitted,  the  stairs  to  the 
upper  story  where  Marius  lived,  in  order  to  embrace  him,  and 
to  question  him  while  so  doing,  and  to  find  out  where  he  had 
been. 


76  MARIUB 

But  the  youth  had  taken  less  time  to  descend  than  the  old 
man  had  to  ascend,  and  when  Father  Gillenorraand  entered  the 
attic,  Marius  was  no  longer  there. 

The  bed  had  not  been  disturbed,  and  on  the  bed  lay,  out- 
spread, but  not  defiantly,  the  great-coat  and  the  black  ribbon. 

"I  like  this  better,"  said  M.  Gillenormand. 

And  a  moment  later,  he  made  his  entrance  into  the  salon, 
where  Mademoiselle  Gillenormand  was  already  seated,  busily 
embroidering  her  cart-wheels. 

The  entrance  was  a  triumphant  one. 

M.  Gillenormand  held  in  one  hand  the  great-coat,  and  in  the 
other  the  neck-ribbon,  and  exclaimed: — 

"Victory  !  We  are  about  to  penetrate  the  mystery !  We  are 
going  to  learn  the  most  minute  details ;  we  are  going  to  lay  our 
finger  on  the  debaucheries  of  our  sly  friend  !  Here  we  have  the 
romance  itself.  I  have  the  portrait !" 

In  fact,  a  case  of  black  shagreen,  resembling  a  medallion 
portrait,  was  suspended  from  the  ribbon. 

The  old  man  took  this  case  and  gazed  at  it  for  some  time 
without  opening  it,  with  that  air  of  enjoyment,  rapture,  and 
wrath,  with  which  a  poor  hungry  fellow  beholds  an  admirable 
dinner  which  is  not  for  him,  pass  under  his  very  nose. 

"For  this  evidently  is  a  portrait.  I  know  all  about  such 
things.  That  is  worn  tenderly  on  the  heart.  How  stupid  they 
are  !  Some  abominable  fright  that  will  make  us  shudder,  prob- 
ably !  Young  men  have  such  bad  taste  nowadays !" 

"Let  us  see,  father,"  said  the  old  spinster. 

The  case  opened  by  the  pressure  of  a  spring.  They  found 
in  it  nothing  but  a  carefully  folded  paper. 

"From  the  same  to  the  same,"  said  M.  Gillenormand,  burst- 
ing with  laughter.  "I  know  what  it  is.  A  billet-doux." 

"Ah  !  let  us  read  it !"  said  the  aunt. 

And  she  put  on  her  spectacles.  They  unfolded  the  paper 
and  read  as  follows : — 

"For  my  son. — The  Emperor  made  me  a  Baron  on  the  battle- 
field of  Waterloo.  Since  the  Restoration  disputes  my  right  to 
this  title  which  I  purchased  with  my  blood,  my  son  shall  take 


THE  GRANDFATHER  AND  THE  GRASD80N      77 

it  and  bear  it.  That  he  will  be  worthy  of  it  is  a  matter  of 
course." 

The  feelings  of  father  and  daughter  cannot  be  described. 
They  felt  chilled  as  by  the  breath  of  a  death's-head.  They  did 
not  exchange  a  word. 

Only,  M.  Gillenormand  said  in  a  low  voice  and  as  though 
speaking  to  himself : — 

"It  is  the  slasher's  handwriting." 

The  aunt  examined  the  paper,  turned  it  about  in  all  direc- 
tions, then  put  it  back  in  its  case. 

At  the  same  moment  a  little  oblong  packet,  enveloped  in 
blue  paper,  fell  from  one  of  the  pockets  of  the  great-coat. 
Mademoiselle  Gillenormand  picked  it  up  and  unfolded  the 
blue  paper. 

It  contained  Marius'  hundred  cards.  She  handed  one  of 
them  to  M.  Gillenormand,  who  read:  Le  Baron  Marius  Pont- 
mercy. 

The  old  man  rang  the  bell.  Nicolette  came.  M.  Gillenor- 
mand took  the  ribbon,  the  case,  and  the  coat,  flung  them  all 
on  the  floor  in  the  middle  of  the  room,  and  said : — 

"Carry  those  duds  away." 

A  full  hour  passed  in  the  most  profound  silence.  The  old 
man  and  the  old  spinster  had  seated  themselves  with  their 
backs  to  each  other,  and  were  thinking,  each  on  his  own  ac- 
count, the  same  things,  in  all  probability. 

At  the  expiration  of  this  hour,  Aunt  Gillenormand  said  : — 

"A  pretty  state  of  things !" 

A  few  moments  later,  Marius  made  his  appearance.  He 
entered.  Even  before  he  had  crossed  the  threshold,  he  saw  his 
grandfather  holding  one  of  his  own  cards  in  his  hand,  and  on 
catching  sight  of  him,  the  latter  exclaimed  with  bis  air  of  bour- 
geois and  grinning  superiority  which  was  something  crush- 
ing:— 

"Well !  well !  well !  well !  well !  so  you  are  a  baron  now.  I 
present  you  my  compliments.  What  is  the  meaning  of 
this  ?" 

Marius  reddened  slightly  and  replied : — 


78  31AKIUS 

"It  means  that  I  am  the  son  of  my  father." 

M.  Gillenormand  ceased  to  laugh,  and  said  harshly: — 

"I  am  your  father." 

"My  father/'  retorted  Marius,  with  downcast  eyes  and  a 
severe  air,  "was  a  humble  and  heroic  man,  who  served  the 
Republic  and  France  gloriously,  who  was  great  in  the  greatest 
history  that  men  have  ever  made,  who  lived  in  the  bivouac  for 
a  quarter  of  a  century,  beneath  grape-shot  and  bullets,  in  snow 
and  mud  by  day,  beneath  rain  at  night,  who  captured  two  flags, 
who  received  twenty  wounds,  who  died  forgotten  and  aban- 
doned, and  who  never  committed  but  one  mistake,  which  was 
to  love  too  fondly  two  ingrates,  his  country  and  myself." 

This  was  more  than  M.  Gillenormand  could  bear  to  hear. 
At  the  word  republic,  he  rose,  or,  to  speak  more  correctly,  he 
sprang  to  his  feet.  Every  word  that  Marius  had  just  uttered 
produced  on  the  visage  of  the  old  Royalist  the  effect  of  the 
puffs  of  air  from  a  forge  upon  a  blazing  brand.  From  a  dull 
hue  he  had  turned  red,  from  red,  purple,  and  from  purple, 
flame-colored. 

"Marius !"  he  cried.  "Abominable  child  !  I  do  not  know 
what  your  father  was !  I  do  not  wish  to  know  !  I  know  noth- 
ing about  that,  and  I  do  not  know  him !  But  what  I  do  know 
is,  that  there  never  was  anything  but  scoundrels  among  those 
men !  They  were  all  rascals,  assassins,  red-caps,  thieves !  I 
say  all !  I  say  all !  I  know  not  one  !  I  say  all !  Do  you  hear 
me,  Marius !  Sec  here,  you  are  no  more  a  baron  than  my  slip- 
per is !  They  were  all  bandits  in  the  service  of  Robespierre ! 
All  who  served  B-u-o-naparte  were  brigands !  They  were  all 
traitors  who  betrayed,  betrayed,  betrayed  their  legitimate  king! 
All  cowards  who  fled  before  the  Prussians  and  the  English  at 
Waterloo  !  That  is  what  I  do  know  !  Whether  Monsieur  your 
father  comes  in  that  category,  I  do  not  know !  I  am  sorry  for 
it,  so  much  the  worse,  your  humble  servant !" 

In  his  turn,  it  was  Marius  who  was  the  firebrand  and  M. 
Gillenormand  who  was  the  bellows.  Marius  quivered  in  every 
limb,  he  did  not  know  what  would  happen  next,  his  brain  was 
on  fire.  He  was  the  priest  who  beholds  all  his  sacred  wafers 


THE  GRANDFATHER  AND  THE  GRANDSON      79 

cast  to  the  winds,  the  fakir  who  beholds  a  passer-by  spit  upon 
his  idol.  It  could  not  be  that  such  things  had  been  uttered  in 
his  presence.  What  was  he  to  do?  His  father  had  just  been 
trampled  under  foot  and  stamped  upon  in  his  presence,  but  by 
whom?  By  his  grandfather.  How  was  he  to  avenge  the  one 
without  outraging  the  other?  It  was  impossible  for  him  to  in- 
sult his  grandfather  and  it  was  equally  impossible  for  him  to 
leave  his  father  unavenged.  On  the  one  hand  was  a  sacred 
grave,  on  the  other  hoary  locks. 

He  stood  there  for  several  moments,  staggering  as  though 
intoxicated,  with  all  this  whirlwind  dashing  through  his  head; 
then  he  raised  his  eyes,  gazed  fixedly  at  his  grandfather,  and 
cried  in  a  voice  of  thunder : — 

"Down  with  the  Bourbons,  and  that  great  hog  of  a  Louis 
XVIII.!" 

Louis  XVIII.  had  been  dead  for  four  years;  but  it  was  all 
the  same  to  him. 

The  old  man,  who  had  been  crimson,  turned  whiter  than  his 
hair.  He  wheeled  round  towards  a  bust  of  M.  le  Due  do  Berry, 
which  stood  on  the  chimney-piece,  and  made  a  profound  bow, 
with  a  sort  of  peculiar  majesty.  Then  he  paced  twice,  slowly 
and  in  silence,  from  the  fireplace  to  the  window  and  from  the 
window  to  the  fireplace,  traversing  the  whole  length  of  the 
room,  and  making  the  polished  floor  creak  as  though  he  had 
been  a  stone  statue  walking. 

On  his  second  turn,  he  bent  over  his  daughter,  who  was 
watching  this  encounter  with  the  stupefied  air  of  an  antiquated 
lamb,  and  said  to  her  with  a  smile  that  was  almost  calm:  "A 
baron  like  this  gentleman,  and  a  bourgeois  like  myself  cannot 
remain  under  the  same  roof." 

And  drawing  himself  up,  all  at  once,  pallid,  trembling,  ter- 
rible, with  his  brow  rendered  more  lofty  by  the  terrible  radi- 
ance of  wrath,  he  extended  his  arm  towards  Marius  and 
shouted  to  him  : — 

"Be  off !" 

Marius  left  the  house. 

On  the  following  day,  M.  Gillenormand  said  to  his  daughter : 


80  MARIU8 

"You  will  send  sixty  pistoles  every  six  months  to  that  blood- 
drinker,  and  yon  will  never  mention  his  name  to  me." 

Having  an  immense  reserve  fund  of  wrath  to  get  rid  of,  and 
not  knowing  what  to  do  with  it,  he  continued  to  address  his 
daughter  as  you  instead  of  thou  for  the  next  three  months. 

Marius,  on  his  side,  had  gone  forth  in  indignation.  There 
was  one  circumstance  which,  it  must  he  admitted,  aggravated 
his  exasperation.  There  are  always  petty  fatalities  of  the  sort 
which  complicate  domestic  dramas.  They  augment  the  griev- 
ances in  such  cases,  although,  in  reality,  the  wrongs  are  not 
increased  by  them.  While  carrying  Marius'  "duds"  precipi- 
tately to  his  chamber,  at  his  grandfather's  command,  Nicolette 
had,  inadvertently,  let  fall,  probably,  on  the  attic  staircase, 
which  was  dark,  that  medallion  of  black  shagreen  which  con- 
tained the  paper  penned  by  the  colonel.  Neither  paper  nor 
case  could  afterwards  be  found.  Marius  was  convinced  that 
"Monsieur  Gillenormand" — from  that  day  forth  he  never 
alluded  to  him  otherwise — had  flung  "his  father's  testament" 
in  the  fire.  He  knew  by  heart  the  few  lines  which  the  colonel 
had  written,  and,  consequently,  nothing  was  lost.  But  the 
paper,  the  writing,  that  sacred  relic, — all  that  was  his  very 
heart.  What  had  been  done  with  it  ? 

Marius  had  taken  his  departure  without  saying  whither  he 
was  going,  and  without  knowing  where,  with  thirty  francs,  his 
watch,  and  a  few  clothes  in  a  hand-bag.  He  had  entered  a 
hackney-coach,  had  engaged  it  by  the  hour,  and  had  directed 
his  course  at  hap-hazard  towards  the  Latin  quarter. 

What  was  to  become  of  Marius? 


BOOK  FOURTH.— THE  FRIENDS  OF  THE  ABC 
CHAPTER   I 

A   GROUP    WHICH    BARELY    MISSED   BECOMING   HISTORIC 

AT  that  epoch,  which  was,  to  all  appearances  indifferent,  a 
certain  revolutionary  quiver  was  vaguely  current.  Breaths 
which  had  started  forth  from  the  depths  of  '89  and  '93  were  in 
the  air.  Youth  was  on  the  point,  may  the  reader  pardon  us  the 
word,  of  moulting.  People  were  undergoing  a  transformation, 
almost  without  being  conscious  of  it,  through  the  movement  of 
the  age.  The  needle  which  moves  round  the  compass  also 
moves  in  souls.  p]ach  person  was  taking  that  step  in  advance 
which  he  was  bound  to  take.  The  Royalists  were  becoming 
liberals,  liberals  were  turning  democrats.  It  was  a  flood  tide 
complicated  with  a  thousand  ebb  movements;  the  peculiarity 
of  ebbs  is  to  create  intermixtures;  hence  the  combination  of 
very  singular  ideas;  people  adored  both  Napoleon  and  liberty. 
We  are  making  history  here.  These  were  the  mirages  of  that 
period.  Opinions  traverse  phases.  Voltairian  royalism,  a 
quaint  variety,  had  a  no  less  singular  sequel,  Bonapartist  lib- 
eralism. 

Other  groups  of  minds  were  more  serious.  In  that  direction, 
they  sounded  principles,  they  attached  themselves  to  the  right. 
They  grew  enthusiastic  for  the  absolute,  they  caught  glimpses 
of  infinite  realizations;  the  absolute,  by  its  very  rigidity,  urges 
spirits  towards  the  sky  and  causes  them  to  float  in  illimitable 
space.  There  is  nothing  like  dogma  for  bringing  forth  dreams. 
And  there  is  nothing  like  dreams  for  engendering  the  future, 
t'topia  to-day,  flesh  and  blood  to-morrow. 

These  advanced  opinions  had  a  double  foundation.   A  begin- 


82  MARIUS 

ning  of  mystery  menaced  "the  established  order  of  things," 
which  was  suspicious  and  underhand.  A  sign  which  was  revo- 
lutionary to  the  highest  degree.  The  second  thoughts  of  power 
meet  the  second  thoughts  of  the  populace  in  the  mine.  The  in- 
cubation of  insurrections  gives  the  retort  to  the  premeditation 
of  coups  d'etat. 

There  did  not,  as  yet,  exist  in  France  any  of  those  vast 
underlying  organizations,  like  the  German  tugendbund  and 
Italian  Carbonarism;  but  here  and  there  there  were  dark  un- 
derminings, which  were  in  process  of  throwing  off  shoots.  The 
Cougourde  was  being  outlined  at  Aix ;  there  existed  at  Paris, 
among  other  affiliations  of  that  nature,  the  society  of  the 
Friends  of  the  A  B  C. 

What  were  these  Friends  of  the  ABC?  A  society  which 
had  for  its  object  apparently  the  education  of  children,  in  real- 
ity the  elevation  of  man. 

They  declared  themselves  the  Friends  of  the  A  B  C, — the 
Abaisse, — the  debased, — that  is  to  say,  the  people.  They 
wished  to  elevate  the  people.  It  was  a  pun  which  we  should 
do  wrong  to  smile  at.  Puns  are  sometimes  serious  factors  in 
politics;  witness  the  Castratus  ad  castra,  which  made  a  general 
of  the  army  of  Narses;  witness:  Barbari  et  Barberini;  witness: 
Tu  es  Petrus  et  super  hanc  petram,  etc.,  etc. 

The  Friends  of  the  ABC  were  not  numerous,  it  was  a  secret 
society  in  the  state  of  embryo,  we  might  almost  say  a  coterie, 
if  coteries  ended  in  heroes.  They  assembled  in  Paris  in  two 
localities,  near  the  fish-market,  in  a  wine-shop  called  Corintke, 
of  which  more  will  be  heard  later  on,  and  near  the  Pantheon  in 
in  a  little  cafe  in  the  Rue  Saint-Michel  called  the  Cafe  Musain, 
now  torn  down;  the  first  of  these  meeting-places  was  close  to 
the  workingman,  the  second  to  the  students. 

The  assemblies  of  the  Friends  of  the  ABC  were  usually 
held  in  a  back  room  of  the  Cafe  Musain. 

This  hall,  which  was  tolerably  remote  from  the  cafe,  with 
which  it  was  connected  by  an  extremely  long  corridor,  had  two 
windows  and  an  exit  with  a  private  stairway  on  the  little  Rue 
des  Gres.  There  they  smoked  and  drank,  and  gambled  and 


THE  FRIENDS  OF  THE  ABC  83 

laughed.  There  they  conversed  in  very  loud  tones  about  every- 
thing, and  in  whispers  of  other  things.  An  old  map  of  France 
under  the  Republic  was  nailed  to  the  wall, — a  sign  quite  suffi- 
cient to  excite  the  suspicion  of  a  police  agent. 

The  greater  part  of  the  Friends  of  the  ABC  were  students, 
who  were  on  cordial  terms  with  the  working  classes.  Here  are 
the  names  of  the  principal  ones.  They  belong,  in  a  certain 
measure,  to  history:  Enjolras,  Combeferre,  Jean  Prouvaire, 
Feuilly,  Courfeyrac,  Bahorel,  Lesgle  or  Laigle,  Joly, 
Grantaire. 

These  young  men  formed  a  sort  of  family,  through  the  bond 
of  friendship.  All,  with  the  exception  of  Laigle,  were  from 
the  South. 

This  was  a  remarkable  group.  It  vanished  in  the  invisible 
depths  which  lie  behind  us.  At  the  point  of  this  drama  which 
we  have  now  reached,  it  will  not  perhaps  be  superfluous  to 
throw  a  ray  of  light  upon  these  youthful  heads,  before  the 
reader  beholds  them  plunging  into  the  shadow  of  a  tragic 
adventure. 

Enjolras,  whose  name  we  have  mentioned  first  of  all, 
— the  reader  shall  see  why  later  on, — was  an  only  son  and 
wealthy. 

Enjolras  was  a  charming  young  man,  who  was  capable  of 
being  terrible.  He  was  angelically  handsome.  He  was  a  sav- 
age Antinous.  One  would  have  said,  to  see  the  pensive 
thoughtfulness  of  his  glance,  that  he  had  already,  in  some  pre- 
vious state  of  existence,  traversed  the  revolutionary  apocalypse. 
He  possessed  the  tradition  of  it  as  though  he  had  been  a  wit- 
ness. He  was  acquainted  with  all  the  minute  details  of  the 
great  affair.  A  pontifical  and  warlike  nature,  a  singular 
thing  in  a  youth.  He  was  an  officiating  priest  and  a  man  of 
war;  from  the  immediate  point  of  view,  a  soldier  of  the 
democracy;  above  the  contemporary  movement,  the  priest  of 
the  ideal.  His  eyes  were  deep,  his  lids  a  little  red.  his  lower 
lip  was  thick  and  easily  became  disdainful,  his  brow  was 
lofty.  A  great  deal  of  brow  in  a  face  i>  like  a  great  deal  of 
horizon  in  a  view.  Like  certain  young  men  at  the  beginning 


84  MAKIUS 

of  this  century  and  the  end  of  the  last,  who  became  illustrious 
at  an  early  age,  he  was  endowed  with  excessive  youth,  and 
was  as  rosy  as  a  young  girl,  although  subject  to  hours  of 
pallor.  Already  a  man,  he  still  seemed  a  child.  His  two  and 
twenty  years  appeared  to  be  but  seventeen ;  he  was  serious, 
it  did  not  seem  as  though  he  were  aware  there  was  on  earth 
a  thing  called  woman.  He  had  but  one  passion — the  right ; 
but  one  thought — to  overthrow  the  obstacle.  On  Mount  Aven- 
tine,  he  would  have  been  Gracchus;  in  the  Convention,  lie 
would  have  been  Saint-Just.  He  hardly  saw  the  roses,  he 
ignored  spring,  he  did  not  hear  the  carolling  of  the  birds;  the 
bare  throat  of  Evadne  would  have  moved  him  no  more  than  it 
would  have  moved  Aristogeiton ;  he.  like  Harmodius,  thought 
flowers  good  for  nothing  except  to  conceal  the  sword.  Ho 
was  severe  in  his  enjoyments.  He  chastely  dropped  his  eyes 
before  everything  which  was  not  the  Republic.  He  was  the 
marble  lover  of  liberty.  His  speech  was  harshly  inspired,  and 
had  the  thrill  of  a  hymn.  He  was  subject  to  unexpected 
outbursts  of  soul.  Woe  to  the  love-affair  which  should  have 
risked  itself  beside  him  !  If  any  grisette  of  the  Place  Cambrai 
or  the  Rue  Saint-Jean-dc-Beauvais,  seeing  that  face  of  a 
youth  escaped  from  college,  that  page's  mien,  those  long, 
golden  lashes,  those  blue  eyes,  that  hair  billowing  in  the  wind, 
those  rosy  cheek?,  those  fresli  lips,  those  exquisite  teeth,  had 
conceived  an  appetite  for  that  complete  aurora,  and  had  tried 
her  beauty  on  Knjolras.  an  astounding  and  terrible  glance 
would  have  promptly  shown  her  the  abyss,  and  would  have 
taught  her  not  to  confound  the  mighty  cherub  of  Ezekiel  with 
the  gallant  Cherubino  of  Beaumarchais. 

By  the  side  of  Knjolras,  who  represented  the  logic  of  the 
Revolution,  Combeferre  represented  its  philosophy.  Between 
the  logic  of  the  Revolution  and  its  philosophy  there  exists  this 
difference — that  its  logic  may  end  in  war,  whereas  its  philoso- 
phy can  end  only  in  peace.  Combeferre  complemented  and 
rect i fled  Enjolras.  He  was  less  lofty,  but  broader.  He 
desired  to  pour  into  all  minds  the  extensive  principles  of 
general  ideas:  he  said:  "Revolution,  but  civilization";  and 


THE  FRIENDS  OF  THE  ABC  g!^ 

around  the  mountain  peak  he  opened  out  a  vast  view  of  the 
blue  sky.  The  Revolution  was  more  adapted  for  breathing 
with  Combeferre  than  with  Enjolras.  Enjolras  expressed  its 
divine  right,  and  Combeferre  its  natural  right.  The  first 
attached  himself  to  Eobespierre;  the  second  confined  himself 
to  Condorcet.  Combeferre  lived  the  life  of  all  the  rest  of  the 
world  more  than  did  Enjolras.  If  it  had  been  granted  to 
these  two  young  men  to  attain  to  history,  the  one  would  have 
been  the  just,  the  other  the  wise  man.  Enjolras  was  the  more 
virile,  Combeferre  the  more  humane.  Homo  and  vir,  that  was 
the  exact  effect  of  their  different  shades.  Combeferre  was  as 
gentle  as  Enjolras  was  severe,  through  natural  whiteness. 
He  loved  the  word  citizen,  but  he  preferred  the  word  man. 
He  would  gladly  have  said:  Hombre,  like  the  Spanish.  He 
read  everything,  went  to  the  theatres,  attended  the  courses 
of  public  lecturers,  learned  the  polarization  of  light  from 
Arago,  grew  enthusiastic  over  a  lesson  in  which  Geoffrey 
Sainte-Hilaire  explained  the  double  function  of  the  external 
carotid  artery,  and  the  internal,  the  one  which  makes  the  face, 
and  the  one  which  makes  the  brain ;  he  kept  up  with  what  was 
going  on,  followed  science  step  by  step,  compared  Saint-Simon 
with  Fourier,  deciphered  hieroglyphics,  broke  the  pebble  which 
he  found  and  reasoned  on  geology,  drew  from  memory  a  silk- 
worm moth,  pointed  out  the  faulty  French  in  the  Dictionary 
of  the  Academy,  studied  Puysegur  and  Deleuze,  affirmed  noth- 
ing, not  even  miracles;  denied  nothing,  not  even  ghosts; 
turned  over  the  files  of  the  Moniteur,  reflected.  He  declared 
that  the  future  lies  in  the  hand  of  the  schoolmaster,  and 
busied  himself  with  educational  questions.  He  desired  that 
society  should  labor  without  relaxation  at  the  elevation  of  the 
moral  and  intellectual  level,  at  coining  science,  at  putting 
ideas  into  circulation,  at  increasing  the  mind  in  youthful 
persons,  and  he  feared  lest  the  present  poverty  of  method,  the 
paltriness  from  a  literary  point  of  view  confined  to  two  or 
three  centuries  called  classic,  the  tyrannical  dogmatism  of 
official  pedants,  scholastic  prejudices  and  routines  should  end 
by  converting  our  colleges  into  artificial  oyster  beds.  He  was 


8G  MARTVB 

learned,  a  purist,  exact,  a  graduate  of  the  Polytechnic,  a  close 
student,  and  at  the  same  time,  thoughtful  "even  to  chimeras," 
so  his  friends  said.  He  believed  in  all  dreams,  railroads,  the 
suppression  of  suffering  in  chirurgical  operations,  the  fixing 
of  images  in  the  dark  chamber,  the  electric  telegraph,  the 
steering  of  balloons.  Moreover,  he  was  not  much  alarmed 
by  the  citadels  erected  against  the  human  mind  in  every 
direction,  by  superstition,  despotism,  and  prejudice.  He  was 
one  of  those  who  think  that  science  will  eventually  turn  the 
position.  Enjolras  was  a  chief,  Combeferre  was  a  guide. 
One  would  have  liked  to  fight  under  the  one  and  to  march 
behind  the  other.  It  is  not  that  Combeferre  was  not  capable 
of  fighting,  he  did  not  refuse  a  hand-to-hand  combat  with  the 
obstacle,  and  to  attack  it  by  main  force  and  explosively ;  but 
it  suited  him  better  to  bring  the  human  race  into  accord  with 
its  destiny  gradually,  by  means  of  education,  the  inculcation 
of  axioms,  the  promulgation  of  positive  laws ;  and,  between 
two  lights,  his  preference  was  rather  for  illumination  than  for 
conflagration.  A  conflagration  can  create  an  aurora,  no 
doubt,  hut  why  not  await  the  dawn?  A  volcano  illumi- 
nates, but  daybreak  furnishes  a  still  better  illumination. 
Possibly,  Combeferre  preferred  the  whiteness  of  the  beautiful 
to  the  blaze  of  the  sublime.  A  light  troubled  by  smoke, 
progress  purchased  at  the  expense  of  violence,  only  half  satis- 
fied this  tender  and  serious  spirit.  The  headlong  precipita- 
tion of  a  people  into  the  truth,  a  '93,  terrified  him;  neverthe- 
less, stagnation  was  still  more  repulsive  to  him,  in  it  he 
detected  putrefaction  and  death  ;  on  the  whole,  he  preferred 
scum  to  miasma,  and  he  preferred  the  torrent  to  the  cesspool, 
and  the  falls  of  Niagara  to  the  lake  of  Montfaucon.  In  short, 
he  desired  neither  halt  nor  haste.  While  his  tumultuous 
friends,  captivated  by  the  absolute,  adored  and  invoked 
splendid  revolutionary  adventures,  Combeferre  was  inclined 
to  let  progress,  good  progress,  take  its  own  course ;  he  may 
have  been  cold,  but  he  was  pure;  methodical,  but  irreproach- 
able ;  phlegmatic,  but  imperturbable.  Combeferre  would  have 
knelt  and  clasped  his  hands  to  enable  the  future  to  arrive  in 


THE  FRIENDS  OF  THE  ABC  g7 

all  its  candor,  and  that  nothing  might  disturb  the  immense 
and  virtuous  evolution  of  the  races.  The  good  must  be  inno- 
cent, he  repeated  incessantly.  And  in  fact,  if  the  grandeur 
of  the  Revolution  consists  in  keeping  the  dazzling  ideal  fixedly 
in  view,  and  of  soaring  thither  athwart  the  lightnings,  with 
fire  and  blood  in  its  talons,  the  beauty  of  progress  lies  in  being 
spotless ;  and  there  exists  between  Washington,  who  repre- 
sents the  one,  and  Danton,  who  incarnates  the  other,  that 
difference  which  separates  the  swan  from  the  angel  with  the 
wings  of  an  eagle. 

Jean  Prouvaire  was  a  still  softer  shade  than  Combeferre. 
His  name  was  Jehan,  owing  to  that  petty  momentary  freak 
which  mingled  with  the  powerful  and  profound  movement 
whence  sprang  the  very  essential  study  of  the  Middle  Ages. 
Jean  Prouvaire  was  in  love;  he  cultivated  a  pot  of  flowers, 
played  on  the  flute,  made  verses,  loved  the  people,  pitied 
woman,  wept  over  the  child,  confounded  God  and  the  future 
in  the  same  confidence,  and  blamed  the  Revolution  for  having 
caused  the  fall  of  a  royal  head,  that  of  Andre  Chenier.  His 
voice  was  ordinarily  delicate,  but  suddenly  grew  manly.  He 
was  learned  even  to  erudition,  and  almost  an  Orientalist. 
Above  all,  he  was  good ;  and,  a  very  simple  thing  to  those  who 
know  how  nearly  goodness  borders  on  grandeur,  in  the  matter 
of  poetry,  he  preferred  the  immense.  He  knew  Italian,  Latin, 
Greek,  and  Hebrew;  and  these  served  him  only  for  the  perusal 
of  four  poets:  Dante,  Juvenal,  yEschylus,  and  Isaiah.  In 
French,  he  preferred  Corncille  to  Racine,  and  Agrippa  d'Au- 
bigne  to  Corneille.  He  loved  to  saunter  through  fields  of  wild 
oats  and  corn-flowers,  and  busied  himself  with  clouds  nearly  as 
much  as  with  events.  His  mind  had  two  attitudes,  one  on  the 
side  towards  man,  the  other  on  that  towards  God;  he  studied 
or  he  contemplated.  All  day  long,  he  buried  himself  in  social 
questions,  salary,  capital,  credit,  marriage,  religion,  liberty  of 
thought,  education,  penal  servitude,  poverty,  association,  prop- 
erty, production  and  sharing,  the  enigma  of  this  lower  world 
which  covers  the  human  ant-hill  with  darkness;  and  at  nighi, 
he  gazed  upon  the  planets,  those  enormous  beings.  Like 


88  M  ARIL'S 

Enjolras.  he  was  wealthy  and  an  only  son.  He  spoke  softly, 
bowed  his  head,  lowered  his  eyes,  smiled  with  embarrassment, 
dressed  badly,  had  an  awkward  air,  blushed  at  a  mere  nothing, 
and  was  very  timid.  Yet  he  was  intrepid. 

Feuilly  was  a  workingman,  a  fan-maker,  orphaned  both  of 
father  and  mother,  who  earned  with  difficulty  three  francs  a 
day,  and  had  but  one  thought,  to  deliver  the  world.  lie  had 
one  other  preoccupation,  to  educate  himself ;  he  called  this 
also,  delivering  himself.  Pie  had  taught  himself  to  read  and 
write;  everything  that  he  knew,  he  had  learned  by  himself. 
Feuilly  had  a  generous  heart.  The  range  of  his  embrace  was 
immense.  This  orphan  had  adopted  the  peoples.  As  his 
mother  had  failed  him,  he  meditated  on  his  country.  He 
brooded  with  the  profound  divination  of  the  man  of  the 
people,  over  what  we  now  call  the  idea  of  the  nationality,  had 
learned  history  with  the  express  object  of  raging  with  full 
knowledge  of  the  case.  In  this  club  of  young  Utopians,  occu- 
pied chiefly  with  France,  he  represented  the  outside  world. 
He  had  for  his  specialty  Greece,  Poland,  Hungary,  Roumania, 
Italy.  He  uttered  these  names  incessantly,  appropriately  and 
inappropriately,  with  the  tenacity  of  right.  The  violations  of 
Turkey  on  Greece  and  Thessaly.  of  Russia  on  Warsaw,  of 
Austria  on  Venice,  enraged  him.  Above  all  things,  the  great 
violence  of  1772  aroused  him.  There  is  no  more  sovereign 
eloquence  than  the  true  in  indignation;  he  was  eloquent  with 
that  eloquence.  He  was  inexhaustible  on  that  infamous  date 
of  1772,  on  the  subject  of  that  noble  and  valiant  race  sup- 
pressed by  treason,  and  that  three-sided  crime,  on  that  mon- 
strous ambush,  the  prototype  and  pattern  of  all  those  horrible 
suppressions  of  states,  which,  since  that  time,  have  struck 
many  a  noble  nation,  and  have  annulled  their  certificate  of 
birth,  so  to  speak.  All  contemporary  sojial  crimes  have  their 
origin  in  the  partition  of  Poland.  The  partition  of  Poland 
is  a  theorem  of  which  all  present  political  outrages  are  the 
corollaries.  There  has  not  been  a  despot,  nor  a  traitor  for 
nearly  a  century  back,  who  has  not  signed,  approved,  counter- 
signed, and  copied,  ne  variatur,  the  partition  of  Poland. 


THE  FKIENDR  OF  THE  ABC  89 

When  the  record  of  modern  treasons  was  examined,  that  was 
the  first  thing  which  made  its  appearance.  The  congress  of 
Vienna  consulted  that  crime  before  consummating  its  own. 
1772  sounded  the  onset;  1815  was  the  death  of  the  game. 
Such  was  Feuilly's  habitual  text.  This  poor  workingmun 
had  constituted  himself  the  tutor  of  Justice,  and  she  recom- 
pensed him  by  rendering  him  great.  The  fact  is,  that  there 
is  eternity  in  right.  Warsaw  can  no  more  be  Tartar  than 
Venice  can  be  Teuton.  Kings  lose  their  pains  and  their  honor 
in  the  attempt  to  make  them  so.  Sooner  or  later,  the  sub- 
merged part  floats  to  the  surface  and  reappears.  Greece 
becomes  Greece  again,  Italy  is  once  more  Italy.  The  protest 
of  right  against  the  deed  persists  forever.  The  theft  of  a 
nation  cannot  be  allowed  by  prescription.  These  lofty  deeds 
of  rascality  have  no  future.  A  nation  cannot  have  its  mark 
extracted  like  a  pocket  handkerchief. 

Courfeyrac  had  a  father  who  was  called  M.  de  Courfeyrac. 
One  of  the  false  ideas  of  the  bourgeoisie  under  the  Restoration 
as  regards  aristocracy  and  the  nobility  was  to  believe  in  the 
particle.  The  particle,  as  every  one  knows,  possesses  no  sig- 
nificance. But  the  bourgeois  of  the  epoch  of  la  Minerve  esti- 
mated so  highly  that  poor  de,  that  they  thought  themselves 
bound  to  abdicate  it.  M.  dc  Chauvelin  had  himself  called  M. 
Chauveiin;  M.  de  Caumartin,  M.  Caumartin;  M.  de  Constant 
de  Eobecque,  Benjamin  Constant;  M.  de  Lafayette.  M. 
Lafayette.  Courfeyrac  had  not  wished  to  remain  behind  the 
rest,  and  called  himself  plain  Courfeyrac. 

We  might  almost,  so  far  as  Courfeyrac  is  concerned,  stop 
here,  and  confine  ourselves  to  saying  with  regard  to  what 
remains:  "For  Courfeyrac,  see  Tholomyes." 

Courfeyrac  had,  in  fact,  that  animation  of  youth  which  may 
be  called  the  Itcante  du  diable  of  the  mind.  Later  on,  this 
disappears  like  the  playfulness  of  the  kitten,  and  all  this  grace 
ends,  with  the  bourgeois,  on  two  legs,  and  with  the  tomcat,  on 
four  paws. 

This  sort  of  wit  is  transmitted  from  generation  to  genera- 
tion of  the  successive  levies  of  youth  who  traverse  the  schools. 


90  MAKIUS 

who  pass  it  from  hand  to  hand,  quasi  cursores,  and  is  almost 
always  exactly  the  same;  so  that,  as  we  have  just  pointed  out, 
any  one  who  had  listened  to  Courfeyrac  in  1828  would  have 
thought  he  heard  Tholomyes  in  1817.  Only,  Courfeyrac  was 
an  honorable  fellow.  Beneath  the  apparent  similarities  of  the 
exterior  mind,  the  difference  between  him  and  Tholomycs  was 
very  great.  The  latent  man  which  existed  in  the  two  was 
totally  different  in  the  first  from  what  it  was  in  the  second. 
There  was  in  Tholomyes  a  district  attorney,  and  in  Courfeyrac 
a  paladin. 

Enjolras  was  the  chief,  Combeferre  was  the  guide,  Courfey- 
rac was  the  centre.  The  others  gave  more  light,  he  shed  more 
warmth;  the  truth  is,  that  he  possessed  all  the  qualities  of  a 
centre,  roundness  and  radiance. 

Bahorel  had  figured  in  the  bloody  tumult  of  June,  1822,  on 
the  occasion  of  the  burial  of  young  Lallemand. 

Bahorel  was  a  good-natured  mortal,  who  kept  bad  company, 
brave,  a  spendthrift,  prodigal,  and  to  the  verge  of  generosity, 
talkative,  and  at  times  eloquent,  bold  to  the  verge  of  effron- 
tery ;  the  best  fellow  possible ;  he  had  daring  waistcoats,  and 
scarlet  opinions;  a  wholesale  blusterer,  that  is  to  say,  loving 
nothing  so  much  as  a  quarrel,  unless  it  were  an  uprising;  and 
nothing  so  much  as  an  uprising,  unless  it  were  a  revolution ; 
always  ready  to  smash  a  window-pane,  then  to  tear  up  the 
pavement,  then  to  demolish  a  government,  just  to  see  the  effect 
of  it;  a  student  in  his  eleventh  year.  He  had  nosed  about  the 
law,  but  did  not  practise  it.  He  had  taken  for  his  device: 
"Never  a  lawyer,"  and  for  his  armorial  bearings  a  nightstand 
in  which  was  visible  a  square  cap.  Every  time  that  he  passed 
the  law-school,  which  rarely  happened,  he  buttoned  up  his 
frock-coat, — the  paletot  had  not  yet  been  invented, — and  took 
hygienic  precautions.  Of  the  school  porter  he  said :  "What  a 
fine  old  man !"  and  of  the  dean,  M.  Delvincourt :  "What  a 
monument !"  In  his  lectures  he  espied  subjects  for  ballads, 
and  in  his  professors  occasions  for  caricature.  He  wasted  a 
tolerably  large  allowance,  something  like  three  thousand  francs 
a  year,  in  doing  nothing. 


THE  FRIENDS  OF  THE  ABC  91 

He  had  peasant  parents  whom  he  had  contrived  to  imbue 
with  respect  for  their  son. 

He  said  of  them :  "They  are  peasants  and  not  bourgeois ; 
that  is  the  reason  they  are  intelligent." 

Bahorel,  a  man  of  caprice,  was  scattered  over  numerous 
cafes;  the  others  had  habits,  he  had  none.  He  sauntered.  To 
stray  is  human.  To  saunter  is  Parisian.  In  reality,  he  had  a 
penetrating  mind  and  was  more  of  a  thinker  than  appeared  to 
view. 

He  served  as  a  connecting  link  between  the  Friends  of -the 
ABC  and  other  still  unorganized  groups,  which  were  destined 
to  take  form_  later  on. 

In  this  conclave  of  young  heads,  there  was  one  bald  member. 

The  Marquis  d'Avaray,  whom  Louis  XVIII.  made  a  duke 
for  having  assisted  him  to  enter  a  hackney-coach  on  the  day 
when  he  emigrated,  was  wont  to  relate,  that  in  1814,  on  his 
return  to  France,  as  the  King  was  disembarking  at  Calais,  a 
man  handed  him  a  petition. 

"What  is  your  request  ?"  said  the  King. 

"Sire,  a  post-office." 

"What  is  your  name?" 

"L'Aigle." 

The  King  frowned,  glanced  at  the  signature  of  the  petition 
and  beheld  the  name  written  thus:  LESOLE.  This  non-Bono- 
parte  orthography  touched  the  King  and  he  began  to  smile. 
"Sire,"  resumed  the  man  with  the  petition,  "I  had  for  an- 
cestor a  keeper  of  the  hounds  surnamed  Lesgueules.  This 
surname  furnished  my  name.  I  am  called  Lesgueules,  by  con- 
traction Lesgle,  and  by  corruption  1'Aigle."  This  caused  the 
King  to  smile  broadly.  Later  on  he  gave  the  man  the  posting 
office  of  Meaux,  either  intentionally  or  accidentally. 

The  bald  member  of  the  group  was  the  son  of  this  Lesgle, 
or  Legle,  and  he  signed  himself,  Legle  [de  Meaux].  As  an 
abbreviation,  his  companions  called  him  Bossuet. 

Bossuet  was  a  gay  but  unlucy  fellow.  His  specialty  was  not 
to  succeed  in  anything.  As  an  offset,  he  laughed  at  every- 
thing. At  five  and  twenty  he  was  bald.  His  father  had  ended 


f)2  MARIU8 

by  owning  a  house  and  a  field  ;  but  he,  the  son,  had  made  haste 
to  lose  that  house  and  field  in  a  bad  speculation.  He  had 
nothing  left.  He  possessed  knowledge  and  wit,  but  all  he  did 
miscarried.  Everything  failed  him  and  everybody  deceived 
him;  what  he  was  building  tumbled  down  on  top  of  him.  If 
he  were  splitting  wood,  he  cut  off  a  finger.  If  he  had  a  mis- 
tress, he  speedily  discovered  that  he  had  a  friend  also.  Some 
misfortune  happened  to  him  every  moment,  hence  his  joviality. 
He  said :  "I  live  under  falling  tiles."  He  was  not  easily  aston- 
ished, because,  for  him,  an  accident  was  what  he  had  foreseen, 
he  took  his  bad  luck  serenely,  and  smiled  at  the  teasing  of  fate, 
like  a  person  who  is  listening  to  pleasantries.  He  was  poor, 
but  his  fund  of  good  humor  was  inexhaustible.  He  soon 
reached  his  last  sou,  never  his  last  burst  of  laughter.  When 
adversity  entered  his  doors,  he  saluted  this  old  acquaintance 
cordially,  he  tapped  all  catastrophes  on  the  stomach ;  he  was 
familiar  with  fatality  to  the  point  of  calling  it  by  its  nick- 
name :  "Good  day,  Guignon,"  he  said  to  it. 

These  persecutions  of  fate  had  rendered  him  inventive.  He 
was  full  of  resources.  He  had  no  money,  but  he  found  means, 
when  it  seemed  good  to  him,  to  indulge  in  "unbridled  extrav- 
agance." One  night,  he  went  so  far  as  to  eat  a  "hundred 
francs"  in  a  supper  with  a  wench,  which  inspired  him  to 
make  this  memorable  remark  in  the  midst  of  the  orgy:  ''Pull 
off  my  boots,  you  five-louis  jade." 

Bossuet  was  slowly  directing  his  steps  towards  the  profession 
of  a  lawyer;  he  was  pursuing  his  law  studies  after  the  manner 
of  Baborel.  Bossuet  had  not  much  domicile,  sometimes  none 
at  all.  He  lodged  now  with  one,  now  with  another,  most  often 
with  Joly.  Joly  was  studying  medicine.  He  was  two  years 
younger  than  Bossuet. 

Joly  was  the  "malade  imaginaire"  junior.  What  he  had 
won  in  medicine  was  to  be  more  of  an  invalid  than  a  doctor. 
At  three  and  twenty  he  thought  himself  a  valetudinarian,  and 
passed  his  life  in  inspecting  his  tongue  in  the  mirror.  He 
affirmed  that  man  becomes  magnetic  like  a  needle,  and  in  his 
chamber  he  placed  his  bed  with  its  head  to  the  south,  and 


THE  FRIENDS  OF  THE  ABC  93 

the  foot  to  the  north,  so  that,  at  night,  the  circulation  of  his 
blood  might  not  be  interfered  with  by  the  great  electric  cur- 
rent of  the  globe.  During  thunder  storms,  he  felt  his  pulse. 
Otherwise,  he  was  the  gayest  of  them  all.  All  these  young, 
maniacal,  puny,  merry  incoherences  lived  in  harmony  together, 
and  the  result  was  an  eccentric  and  agreeable  being  whom  his 
comrades,  who  were  prodigal  of  winged  consonants,  called 
Jolllly.  "You  may  fly  away  on  the  four  Us,"  Jean  Prouvaire 
said  to  him.1 

Joly  had  a  trick  of  touching  his  nose  with  the  tip  of  his  cane, 
which  is  an  indication  of  a  sagacious  mind. 

All  these  young  men  who  differed  so  greatly,  and  who,  on 
the  whole,  can  only  be  discussed  seriously,  held  the  same  re- 
ligion :  Progress. 

All  were  the  direct  sons  of  the  French  Revolution.  The 
most  giddy  of  them  became  solemn  when  they  pronounced  that 
date:  '89.  Their  fathers  in  the  flesh  had  been,  either  royalists, 
doctrinaires,  it  matters  not  what;  this  confusion  anterior  to 
themselves,  who  were  young,  did  not  concern  them  at  all ;  the 
pure  blood  of  principle  ran  in  their  veins.  They  attached 
themselves,  without  intermediate  shades,  to  incorruptible  right 
and  absolute  duty. 

Affiliated  and  initiated,  they  sketched  out  the  ideal  under- 
ground. 

Among  all  these  glowing  hearts  and  thoroughly  convinced 
minds,  there  was  one  sceptic.  How  came  he  there?  By  juxta- 
position. This  sceptic's  name  was  Grantaire,  and  he  was  in  the 
habit  of  signing  himself  with  this  rebus:  R.  Grantaire  was  a 
man  who  took  good  care  not  to  believe  in  anything.  Moreover, 
he  was  one  of  the  students  who  had  learned  the  most  during 
their  course  at  Paris;  he  knew  that  the  best  coffee  was  to  be 
had  at  the  Cafe  Lemblin,  and  the  best  billiards  at  the  Cafe 
A7oltaire,  that  good  cakes  and  lasses  were  to  be  found  at  the 
Krmitage,  on  the  Boulevard  du  Maine,  spatchcocked  chickens 
at  Mother  Sauget's,  excellent  matelotes  at  tin*  Barricre  do  la 
Cunette,  and  a  certain  thin  white  wine  at  the  Barriere  du  Com- 
1L'Ailc,  wing. 


94  MARIU8 

pat.  He  knew  the  best  place  for  everything ;  in  addition,  box- 
ing and  foot-fencing  and  some  dances ;  and  he  was  a  thorough 
single-stick  player.  He  was  a  tremendous  drinker  to  boot. 
He  was  inordinately  homely :  the  prettiest  boot-stitcher  of  that 
day,  Irma  Boissy,  enraged  with  his  homeliness,  pronounced 
sentence  on  him  as  follows:  "Grantaire  is  impossible";  but 
Grantaire's  fatuity  was  not  to  be  disconcerted.  He  stared 
tenderly  and  fixedly  at  all  women,  with  the  air  of  saying  to 
them  all :  "If  I  only  chose !"  and  of  trying  to  make  his  com- 
rades believe  that  he  was  in  general  demand. 

All  those  words:  rights  of  the  people,  rights  of  man,  the 
social  contract,  the  French  Revolution,  the  Republic,  democ- 
racy, humanity,  civilization,  religion,  progress,  came  very  near 
to  signifying  nothing  whatever  to  Grantaire.  He  smiled  at 
them.  Scepticism,  that  caries  of  the  intelligence,  had  not  left 
him  a  single  whole  idea.  He  lived  with  irony.  This  was  his 
axiom :  "There  is  but  one  certainty,  my  full  glass."  He 
sneered  at  all  devotion  in  all  parties,  the  father  as  well  as  the 
brother,  Robespierre  junior  as  well  as  Loizerolles.  "They  are 
greatly  in  advance  to  be  dead,"  he  exclaimed.  He  said  of  the 
crucifix :  "There  is  a  gibbet  which  has  been  a  success."  A 
rover,  a  gambler,  a  libertine,  often  drunk,  he  displeased  these 
young  dreamers  by  humming  incessantly:  "J'aimons  les  filles, 
et  j'aimons  le  bon  vin."  Air:  Vive  Henri  IV. 

However,  this  sceptic  had  one  fanaticism.  This  fanaticism 
was  neither  a  dogma,  nor  an  idea,  nor  an  art,  nor  a  science ;  it 
was  a  man:  Enjolras.  Grantaire  admired,  loved,  and  vene- 
rated Enjolras.  To  whom  did  this  anarchical  scoffer  unite 
himself  in  this  phalanx  of  absolute  minds?  To  the  most 
absolute.  In  what  manner  had  Enjolras  subjugated  him  ?  By 
his  ideas?  No.  By  his  character.  A  phenomenon  which  is 
often  observable.  A  sceptic  who  adheres  to  a  believer  is  as 
simple  as  the  law  of  complementary  colors.  That  which  we 
lack  attracts  us.  No  one  loves  the  light  like  the  blind  man. 
The  dwarf  adores  the  drum-major.  The  toad  always  has  his 
eyes  fixed  on  heaven.  Why  ?  In  order  to  watch  the  bird  in  its 
flight.  Grantaire,  in  whom  writhed  doubt,  loved  to  watch 


THE  FRIENDS  OF  THE  ABC  95 

faith  soar  in  Enjolras.  He  had  need  of  Enjolras.  That 
chaste,  healthy,  firm,  upright,  hard,  candid  nature  charmed 
him,  without  his  being  clearly  aware  of  it,  and  without  the 
idea  of  explaining  it  to  himself  having  occurred  to  him.  He 
admired  his  opposite  by  instinct.  His  soft,  yielding,  dislo- 
cated, sickly,  shapeless  ideas  attached  themselves  to  Enjolras 
as  to  a  spinal  column.  His  moral  backbone  leaned  on  that 
firmness.  Grantaire  in  the  presence  of  Enjolras  became  some 
one  once  more.  He  was,  himself,  moreover,  composed  of 
two  elements,  which  were,  to  all  appearance,  incompatible. 
He  was  ironical  and  cordial.  His  indifference  loved.  His 
mind  could  get  along  without  belief,  but  his  heart  could  not 
get  along  without  friendship.  A  profound  contradiction ;  for 
an  affection  is  a  conviction.  His  nature  was  thus  constituted. 
There  are  men  who  seem  to  be  born  to  be  the  reverse,  the 
obverse,  the  wrong  side.  They  are  Pollux,  Patrocles,  Nisus, 
Eudamidas,  Ephestion,  Pechmeja.  They  only  exist  on  con- 
dition that  they  are  backed  up  with  another  man ;  their  name 
is  a  sequel,  and  is  only  written  preceded  by  the  conjunction 
and;  and  their  existence  is  not  their  own ;  it  is  the  other  side 
of  an  existence  which  is  not  theirs.  Grantaire  was  one  of  these 
men.  He  was  the  obverse  of  Enjolras. 

One  might  almost  say  that  affinities  begin  with  the  letters  of 
the  alphabet.  In  the  series  0  and  P  are  inseparable.  You 
can,  at  will,  pronounce  0  and  P  or  Orestes  and  Pylades. 

Grantaire,  Enjolras'  true  satellite,  inhabited  this  circle  of 
young  men;  he  lived  there,  he  took  no  pleasure  anywhere  but 
there;  he  followed  them  everywhere.  His  joy  was  to  see  these 
forms  go  and  come  through  the  fumes  of  wine.  They  tol- 
erated him  on  account  of  his  good  humor. 

Enjolras,  the  believer,  disdained  this  sceptic ;  and,  a  sober 
man  himself,  scorned  this  drunkard.  He  accorded  him  a  little 
lofty  pity.  Grantaire  was  an  unaccepted  Pylades.  Always 
harshly  treated  by  Enjolras,  roughly  repulsed,  rejected  yet  ever 
returning  to  the  charge,  he  said  of  Enjolras :  "What  fine  mar- 
ble!" 


96  MARWS 


BLONDEAU'S    FUNERAL   ORATION    BY    BOSSUET 

ON  a  certain  afternoon,  which  had,  as  will  he  seen  hereafter, 
some  coincidence  with  the  events  heretofore  related,  Laigle  de 
Meaux  was  to  be  seen  leaning  in  a  sensual  manner  against  the 
doorpost  of  the  Cafe  Musain.  He  had  the  air  of  a  caryatid  on 
a  vacation;  he  carried  nothing  hut  his  revery,  however,  lie 
was  staring  at  the  Place  Saint-Michel.  To  lean  one's  back 
against  a  thing  is  equivalent  to  lying  down  while  standing 
erect,  which  attitude  is  not  hated  by  thinkers.  Laigle  de 
Meaux  was  pondering,  without  melancholy,  over  a  little  mis- 
adventure which  had  befallen  him  two  days  previously  at 
the  law-school,  and  which  had  modified  his  personal  plans 
for  the  future,  plans  which  were  rather  indistinct  in  any 
case. 

Revery  does  not  prevent  a  cab  from  passing  by,  nor  the 
dreamer  from  taking  note  of  that  cab.  Laigle  de  Meaux, 
whose  eyes  were  straying  about  in  a  sort  of  diffuse  lounging, 
perceived,  athwart  his  somnambulism,  a  two-wheeled  vehicle 
proceeding  through  the  place,  at  a  foot  pace  and  apparently  in 
indecision.  For  whom  was  this  cabriolet  ?  Why  was  it  driving 
at  a  walk?  Laigle  took  a  survey.  In  it,  beside  the  coachman, 
sat  a  young  man,  and  in  front  of  the  young  man  lay  a  rather 
bulky  hand-bag.  The  bag  displayed  to  passers-by  the  follow- 
ing name  inscribed  in  large  black  letters  on  a  card  which  was 
sewn  to  the  stuff:  MARIUS  PONTMERCY. 

This  name  caused  Laigle  to  change  his  attitude.  He  drew 
himself  up  and  hurled  this  apostrophe  at  the  young  man  in  the 
cabriolet: — 

"Monsieur  Marius  Pontmercy !" 

The  cabriolet  thus  addressed  came  to  a  halt. 

The  young  man,  who  also  seemed  deeply  buried  in  thought, 
raised  his  eyes: — 

"II ev?''  said  he. 


THE  FRIENDH  OF  THE  ABC  97 

"You  are  M.  Marius  Pontmercy  ?" 

"Certainly." 

"I  was  looking  for  you,"  resumed  Laigle  de  Meaux. 

"How  so?"  demanded  Marius;  for  it  was  he:  in  fact,  he 
had  just  quitted  his  grandfather's,  and  had  before  him  a  face 
which  he  now  beheld  for  the  first  time.  "I  do  not  know 
you." 

"Neither  do  I  know  you,"  responded  Laigle. 

Marius  thought  he  had  encountered  a  wag,  the  beginning  of 
a  mystification  in  the  open  street.  He  was  not  in  a  very  good 
humor  at  the  moment.  He  frowned.  Laigle  de  Meaux  went 
on  imperturbably : — 

"You  were  not  at  the  school  day  before  yesterday." 

"That  is  possible." 

"That  is  certain." 

"You  are  a  student?"  demanded  Marius. 

"Yes,  sir.  Like  yourself.  Day  before  yesterday,  I  entered 
the  school,  by  chance.  You  know,  one  does  have  such  freaks 
sometimes.  The  professor  was  just  calling  the  roll.  You  are 
not  unaware  that  they  are  very  ridiculous  on  such  occasions. 
At  the  third  call,  unanswered,  your  name  is  erased  from  the 
list.  Sixty  francs  in  the  gulf." 

Marius  began  to  listen. 

"It  was  Blondeau  who  was  making  the  call.  You  know 
Blondeau,  he  has  a  very  pointed  and  very  malicious  nose,  and 
he  delights  to  scent  out  the  absent.  He  slyly  began  with  the 
letter  P.  I  was  not  listening,  not  being  compromised  by  that 
letter.  The  call  was  not  going  badly.  No  erasures;  the  uni- 
verse was  present.  Blondeau  was  grieved.  I  said  to  myself: 
'Blondeau,  my  love,  you  will  not  get  the  very  smallest  sort  of 
an  execution  to-day.'  All  at  once  Blondeau  calls,  'Marius 
Pontmercy!'  No  one  answers.  Blondeau,  filled  with  hope, 
repeats  more  loudly:  'Marius  Pontmercy!'  And  he  takes  his 
pen.  Monsieur,  I  have  bowels  of  compassion.  I  said  to  myself 
hastily:  'Here's  a  brave  fellow  who  is  going  to  get  scratched 
out.  Attention.  Here  is  a  veritable  mortal  who  is  not  exact. 
He's  not  a  good  student.  Here  is  none  of  your  heavy-sides, 


98  MARIUB 

a  student  who  studies,  a  greenhorn  pedant,  strong  on  letters, 
theology,  science,  and  sapience,  one  of  those  dull  wits  cut  by 
the  square ;  a  pin  by  profession.  He  is  an  honorable  idler  who 
lounges,  who  practises  country  jaunts,  who  cultivates  the  gri- 
sette,  who  pays  court  to  the  fair  sex,  who  is  at  this  very  mo- 
ment, perhaps,  with  my  mistress.  Let  us  save  him.  Death  to 
Blondeau !'  At  that  moment,  Blondeau  dipped  his  pen  in, 
all  black  with  erasures  in  the  ink,  cast  his  yellow  eyes  round 
the  audience  room,  and  repeated  for  the  third  time:  'Marius 
Pontmercy !'  I  replied :  'Present !'  This  is  why  you  were 
not  crossed  off." 

''Monsieur ! — "  said  Marius. 

"And  why  I  was,"  added  Laigle  de  Meaux. 

"I  do  not  understand  you,"  said  Marius. 

Laigle  resumed : — 

"Nothing  is  more  simple.  I  was  close  to  the  desk  to  reply, 
and  close  to  the  door  for  the  purpose  of  flight.  The  professor 
gazed  at  me  with  a  certain  intensity.  All  of  a  sudden,  Blon- 
deau, who  must  be  the  malicious  nose  alluded  to  by  Boileau, 
skipped  to  the  letter  L.  L  is  my  letter.  I  cm  from  Meaux, 
and  my  name  is  Lesgle." 

"L'Aigle!"  interrupted  Marius,  "what  a  fine  name!" 

"Monsieur,  Blondeau  came  to  this  fine  name,  and  called: 
'Laigle  !'  I  reply :  'Present !'  Then  Blondeau  gazes  at  me, 
with  the  gentleness  of  a  tiger,  and  says  to  me:  'If  you  are 
Pontmercy,  you  are  not  Laigle.'  A  phrase  which  has  a  dis- 
obliging air  for  you,  but  which  was  lugubrious  only  for  me. 
That  said,  he  crossed  me  off." 

Marius  exclaimed : — 

"I  am  mortified,  sir — " 

"First  of  all,"  interposed  Laigle,  "I  demand  permission  to 
embalm  Bloudeau  in  a  few  phrases  of  deeply  felt  eulogium.  I 
will  assume  that  he  is  dead.  There  will  be  no  great  change 
required  in  his  gauntness,  in  his  pallor,  in  his  coldness,  and 
in  his  smell.  And  I  say:  'Erudimini  qui  judicatis  tcrram. 
Here  lies  Blondeau,  Blondeau  the  Nose,  Blondeau  Nasica,  the 
ox  of  discipline,  bus  disciplina-,  the  bloodhound  of  the  pass- 


THE  FRIENDS  OF  THE  ABC  99 

word,  the  angel  of  the  roll-call,  who  was  upright,  square  exact, 
rigid,  honest,  and  hideous.  God  crossed  him  off  as  he  crossed 
me  off.'  " 

Marius  resumed : — 

"I  am  very  sorry — 

"Young  man,"  said  Laigle  de  Meaux,  "let  this  serve  you 
as  a  lesson.  In  future,  be  exact." 

"I  really  beg  you  a  thousand  pardons." 

"Do  not  expose  your  neighbor  to  the  danger  of  having  his 
name  erased  again." 

"I  am  extremely  sorry — " 

Laigle  burst  out  laughing. 

"And  I  am  delighted.  I  was  on  the  brink  of  becoming  a 
lawyer.  This  erasure  saves  me.  I  renounce  the  triumphs  of 
the  bar.  I  shall  not  defend  the  widow,  and  I  shall  not  attack 
the  orphan.  No  more  toga,  no  more  stage.  Here  is  my  erasure 
all  ready  for  me.  It  is  to  you  that  I  am  indebted  for  it,  Mon- 
sieur Pontmercy.  I  intend  to  pay  a  solemn  call  of  thanks' 
upon  you.  Where  do  you  live?" 

"In  this  cab,"  said  Marius. 

"A  sign  of  opulence,"  retorted  Laigle  calmly.  "I  congratu- 
late you.  You  have  there  a  rent  of  nine  thousand  francs  per 
annum." 

At  that  moment,  Courfeyrac  emerged  from  the  cafe. 

Marius  smiled  sadly. 

"I  have  paid  this  rent  for  the  last  two  hours,  and  I  aspire  to 
get  rid  of  it ;  but  there  is  a  sort  of  history  attached  to  it,  and  I 
don't  know  where  to  go." 

"Come  to  my  place,  sir,"  said  Courfeyrac. 

"I  have  the  priority,"  observed  Laigle,  "but  I  have  no 
home." 

"Hold  your  tongue,  Bossuet,"  said  Courfeyrac. 

"Bossuet,"  said  Marius,  "but  I  thought  that  your  name 
was  Laigle." 

"'De  Meaux,"  replied  Laigle;  "by  metaphor,  Bossuet." 

Courfeyrac  entered  the  cab. 

"Coachman,"  said  he,  "hotel  de  la  Porte-Saint-Jacques." 


MARIUS 

And  that  very  evening,  Marius  found  himself  installed  in  a 
chamber  of  the  hotel  de  la  Porte-Saint-Jacques  side  by  side 
with  Courfeyrac. 

CHAPTER   III 

MARIUS'  ASTONISHMENTS 

IN  a  few  days,  Marius  had  become  Courfeyrac's  friend. 
Youth  is  the  season  for  prompt  welding  and  the  rapid  healing 
of  scars.  Marius  breathed  freely  in  Courfeyrac's  society,  a 
decidedly  new  thing  for  him.  Courfeyrac  put  no  questions  to 
him.  He  did  not  even  think  of  such  a  thing.  At  that  age, 
faces  disclose  everything  on  the  spot.  Words  are  superfluous. 
There  are  young  men  of  whom  it  can  be  said  that  their 
countenances  chatter.  One  looks  at  them  and  one  knows  them. 

One  morning,  however,  Courfeyrac  abruptly  addressed  this 
interrogation  to  him  : — 

"By  the  way,  have  you  any  political  opinions?" 

"The  idea !"  said  Marius,  almost  affronted  by  the  question. 

"What  are  you?" 

"A  dcmocrat-Bonapartist." 

"The  gray  hue  of  a  reassured  rat,"  said  Courfeyrac. 

On  the  following  day,  Courfeyrac  introduced  Marius  at  the 
Cafe  Musain.  Then  he  whispered  in  his  ear,  with  a  smile:  "I 
must  give  you  your  entry  to  the  revolution."  And  he  led  him 
to  the  hall  of  the  Friends  of  the  ABC.  He  presented  him  to 
the  other  comrades,  saying  this  simple  word  which  Marius  did 
not  understand :  "A  pupil." 

Marius  had  fallen  into  a  wasps'-nest  of  wits.  However, 
although  he  was  silent  and  grave,  he  was,  none  the  less,  both 
winged  and  armed. 

Marius.  up  to  that  time  solitary  and  inclined  to  soliloquy, 
and  to  asides,  both  by  habit  and  by  taste,  was  a  little  fluttered 
by  this  covey  of  young  men  around  him.  All  these  various 
initiatives  solicited  his  attention  at  once,  and  pulled  him 
about.  The  tumultuous  movements  of  these  minds  at  liberty 


THE  FRIENDS  OF  THE  ABC  101 

and  at  work  set  his  ideas  in  a  whirl.  Sometimes,  in  his 
trouble,  they  fled  so  far  from  him,  that  he  had  difficulty  in 
recovering  them.  He  heard  them  talk  of  philosophy,  of  liter- 
ature, of  art,  of  history,  of  religion,  in  unexpected  fashion. 
He  caught  glimpses  of  strange  aspects ;  and,  as  he  did  not 
place  them  in  proper  perspective,  he  was  not  altogether  sure 
that  it  was  not  chaos  that  he  grasped.  On  abandoning  his 
grandfather's  opinions  for  the  opinions  of  his  father,  he  had 
supposed  himself  fixed ;  he  now  suspected,  with  uneasiness, 
and  without  daring  to  avow  it  to  himself,  that  he  was  not. 
The  angle  at  which  he  saw  everything  began  to  be  displaced 
anew.  A  certain  oscillation  set  all  the  horizons  of  his  brains 
in  motion.  An  odd  internal  upsetting.  He  almost  suffered 
from  it. 

It  seemed  as  though  there  were  110  "consecrated  things" 
for  those  young  men.  Marius  heard  singular  propositions 
on  every  sort  of  subject,  which  embarrassed  his  still  timid 
mind. 

A  theatre  poster  presented  itself,  adorned  with  the  title  of 
a  tragedy  from  the  ancient  repertory  called  classic :  "Down 
with  tragedy  dear  to  the  bourgeois !"  cried  Bahorel.  And 
Marius  heard  Combeferre  reply: — 

"You  are  wrong,  Bahorel.  The  bourgeoisie  loves  tragedy, 
and  the  bourgeoisie  must  be  left  at  peace  on  that  score. 
Bewigged  tragedy  has  a  reason  for  its  existence,  and  I  am  not 
one  of  those  who,  by  order  of  ^Eschylus,  contest  its  right  to 
existence.  There  are  rough  outlines  in  nature;  there  are,  in 
creation,  ready-made  parodies ;  a  beak  which  is  not  a  beak, 
wings  which  are  not  wings,  gills  which  are  not  gills,  paws 
which  are  not  paws,  a  cry  of  pain  which  arouse?  a  desire  to 
laugh,  there  is  the  duck.  Now,  since  poultry  exists  by  the 
side  of  the  bird,  I  do  not  see  why  classic  tragedy  should  not 
exist  in  the  face  of  antique  tragedy." 

Or  chance  decreed  that  Marius  should  traverse  Rue  Jean- 
Jacques  Rousseau  between  Enjolras  and  Courfeyrac. 

Courfeyrac  took  his  arm : — 

"Pay  attention.    This  is  the  Rue  Platriere,  now  called  Rue 


102  MARIUS 

Jean-Jacques  Rousseau,  on  account  of  a  singular  household 
which  lived  in  it  sixty  years  ago.  This  consisted  of  Jean- 
Jacques  and  Therese.  From  time  to  time,  little  brings  were 
born  there.  Therese  gave  birth  to  them,  Jean- Jacques  repre- 
sented them  as  foundlings." 

And  Enjolras  addressed  Courfeyrac  roughly: — 

"Silence  in  the  presence  of  Jean-Jacques!  I  admire  that 
man.  He  denied  his  own  children,  that  may  be;  but  ho 
adopted  the  people." 

Not  one  of  these  young  men  articulated  the  word  :  The  Em- 
peror. Jean  Prouvaire  alone  sometimes  said  Xapoleon ;  all 
the  others  said  "Bonaparte."  Enjolras  pronounced  it 
"Buonaparte." 

Marius  was  vaguely  surprised.     Initium  sapientice. 


CHAPTER    IV 

THE  BACK  ROOM  OF  THE  CAFE  MUSAIN 

OXE  of  the  conversations  among  the  young  men,  at  which 
Marius  was  present  and  in  which  he  sometimes  joined,  was  a 
veritable  shock  to  his  mind. 

This  took  place  in  the  back  room  of  the  Cafe  Musain. 
Xearly  all  the  Friends  of  the  ABC  had  convened  that  even- 
ing. The  argand  lamp  was  solemnly  lighted.  They  talked 
of  one  thing  and  another,  without  passion  and  with  noise. 
With  the  exception  of  Enjolras  and  Marius,  who  held  their 
peace,  all  were  haranguing  rather  at  hap-hazard.  Conver- 
sations between  comrades  sometimes  are  subject  to  these  peace- 
able tumults.  It  was  a  game  and  an  uproar  as  much  as  a 
conversation.  They  tossed  words  to  each  other  and  caught 
them  up  in  turn.  They  were  chattering  in  all  quarters. 

Xo  woman  was  admitted  to  this  back  room,  except  Louison, 
the  dish-washer  of  the  cafe,  who  passed  through  it  from  time 
to  time,  to  go  to  her  washing  in  the  "lavatory.'' 

Grantaire,  thoroughly  drunk,  was  deafening  the  corner  of 


THE  FRIENDS  OF  THE  ABC  103 

which  he  had  taken  possession,  reasoning  and  contradicting 
at  the  top  of  his  lungs,  and  shouting: — 

"I  am  thirsty.  Mortals,  I  am  dreaming:  that  the  tun  of 
Heidelberg  has  an  attack  of  apoplexy,  and  that  I  am  one  of  the 
dozen  leeches  which  will  be  applied  to  it.  I  want  a  drink.  I 
desire  to  forget  life.  Life  is  a  hideous  invention  of  I  know  not 
whom.  It  lasts  no  time  at  all,  and  is  worth  nothing.  One 
breaks  one's  neck  in  living.  Life  is  a  theatre  set  in  which  there 
are  but  few  practicable  entrances.  Happiness  is  an  antique 
reliquary  painted  on  one  side  only.  Ecclesiastes  says :  'All  is 
vanity.'  I  agree  with  that  good  man,  who  never  existed, 
perhaps.  Zero  not  wishing  to  go  stark  naked,  clothed  himself 
in  vanity.  0  vanity !  The  patching  up  of  everything  with  big 
words !  a  kitchen  is  a  laboratory,  a  dancer  is  a  professor,  an 
acrobat  is  a  gymnast,  a  boxer  is  a  pugilist,  an  apothecary  is 
a  chemist,  a  wigmaker  is  an  artist,  a  hodman  is  an  architect,  a 
jockey  is  a  sportsman,  a  wood-louse  is  a  pterigybranche.  Van- 
ity has  a  right  and  a  wrong  side ;  the  right  side  is  stupid,  it  is 
the  negro  with  his  glass  beads ;  the  wrong  side  is  foolish,  it  is 
the  philosopher  with  his  rags.  I  weep  over  the  one  and  I 
laugh  over  the  other.  What  are  called  honors  and  dignities, 
and  even  dignity  and  honor,  are  generally  of  pinchbeck. 
Kings  make  playthings  of  human  pride.  Caligula  made  a 
horse  a  consul ;  Charles  II.  made  a  knight  of  a  sirloin.  Wrap 
yourself  up  now,  then,  between  Consul  Incitatus  and  Baronet 
Roastbeef.  As  for  the  intrinsic  value  of  people,  it  is  no  longer 
respectable  in  the  least.  Listen  to  the  panegyric  which  neigh- 
bor makes  of  neighbor.  White  on  white  is  ferocious;  if  the 
lily  could  speak,  what  a  Betting  down  it  would  give  the  dove ! 
A  bigoted  woman  prating  of  a  devout  woman  is  more  venom- 
ous than  the  asp  and  the  cobra.  It  is  a  shame  that  I  am 
ignorant,  otherwise  I  would  quote  to  you  a  mass  of  things; 
but  I  know  nothing.  For  instance,  I  have  always  been  witty; 
when  I  was  a  pupil  of  Gros,  instead  of  daubing  wretched 
little  pictures,  I  passed  my  time  in  pilfering  apples;  rapin1 
is  the  masculine  of  rapine.  So  much  for  myself;  as  for  the 
lfT.he  slang  term  for  a  painter's  assistant. 


104  MARIU8 

rest  of  you,  you  are  worth  no  more  than  I  am.  I  scoff  at 
your  perfections,  excellencies,  and  qualities.  Every  good 
quality  tends  towards  a  defect ;  economy  borders  on  avarice, 
the  generous  man  is  next  door  to  the  prodigal,  the  brave  man 
rubs  elbows  with  the  braggart ;  he  who  says  very  pious  says 
a  trifle  bigoted ;  there  are  just  as  many  vices  in  virtue  as  there 
are  holes  in  Diogenes'  cloak.  Whom  do  you  admire,  the 
slain  or  the  slayer,  Cassar  or  Brutus?  Generally  men  are  in 
favor  of  the  slayer.  Long  live  Brutus,  he  has  slain !  There 
lies  the  virtue.  Virtue,  granted,  but  madness  also.  There 
are  queer  spots  on  those  great  men.  The  Brutus  who  killed 
Csesar  was  in  love  with  the  statue  of  a  little  boy.  This  statue 
was  from  the  hand  of  the  Greek  sculptor  Strongylion,  who 
also  carved  that  figure  of  an  Amazon  known  as  the  Beautiful 
Leg,  Eucnernos,  which  Nero  carried  with  him  in  his  travels. 
This  Strongylion  left  but  two  statues  which  placed  Nero  and 
Brutus  in  accord.  Brutus  was  in  love  with  the  one,  Nero  with 
the  other.  All  history  is  nothing  but  wearisome  repetition. 
One  century  is  the  plagiarist  of  the  other.  The  battle  of 
Marengo  copies  the  battle  of  Pydna;  the  Tolbiac  of  Clovis 
and  the  Austerlitz  of  Napoleon  are  as  like  each  other  as  two 
drops  of  water.  1  don't  attach  much  importance  to  victory. 
Nothing  is  so  stupid  as  to  conquer ;  true  glory  lies  in  convinc- 
ing. But  try  to  prove  something !  If  you  are  content  with 
success,  what  mediocrity,  and  with  conquering,  what  wretch- 
edness !  Alas,  vanity  and  cowardice  everywhere.  Everything 
obeys  success,  even  grammar.  Si  volet  usus,  says  Horace. 
Therefore  I  disdain  the  human  race.  Shall  we  descend  to 
the  party  at  all?  Do  you  wish  me  to  begin  admiring  the 
peoples?  What  people,  if  you  please?  Shall  it  be  Greece? 
The  Athenians,  those  Parisians  of  days  gone  by,  slew  Phocion, 
as  we  might  say  Coligny,  and  fawned  upon  tyrants  to  such  an 
extent  that  Anacephorus  said  of  Pisistratus:  "His  urine 
attracts  the  bees."  The  most  prominent  man  in  Greece  for 
fifty  years  was  that  grammarian  Philetas,  who  was  so  small 
and  so  thin  that  he  was  obliged  to  load  his  shoes  with  lead  in 
order  not  to  be  blown  away  by  the  wind.  There  stood  on  the 


THE  FRIEKD8  OF  THE  ABC  105 

groat  square  in  Corinth  a  statue  carved  by  Silanion  and  cata- 
logued by  Pliny;  this  statue  represented  Episthates.  What 
did  Episthates  do?  He  invented  a  trip.  That  sums  up  Greece 
and  glory.  Let  us  pass  on  to  others.  Shall  I  admire  Eng- 
land? Shall  I  admire  France?  France?  Why?  Because 
of  Paris?  I  have  just  told  you  my  opinion  of  Athens.  Eng- 
land ?  Why  ?  Because  of  London  ?  I  hate  Carthage.  And 
then,  London,  the  metropolis  of  luxury,  is  the  headquarters 
of  wretchedness.  There  are  a  hundred  deaths  a  year  of 
hunger  in  the  parish  of  Charing-Cross  alone.  Such  is  Albion. 
I  add,  as  the  climax,  that  I  have  seen  an  Englishwoman  danc- 
ing in  a  wreath  of  roses  and  blue  spectacles.  A  fig  then  for 
England !  If  I  do  not  admire  John  Bull,  shall  I  admire 
Brother  Jonathan?  I  have  but  little  taste  for  that  slave- 
holding  brother.  Take  away  Time  is  money,  what  remains 
of  England?  Take  away  Cotton  is  king,  what  remains  of 
America?  Germany  is  the  lymph,  Italy  is  the  bile.  Shall 
we  go  into  ecstasies  over  Russia?  Voltaire  admired  it.  He 
also  admired  China.  I  admit  that  Russia  has  its  beauties, 
among  others,  a  stout  despotism ;  but  I  pity  the  despots.  Their 
health  is  delicate.  A  decapitated  Alexis,  a  poignarded  Peter, 
a  strangled  Paul,  another  Paul  crushed  flat  with  kicks,  divers 
Ivans  strangled,  with  their  throats  cut,  numerous  Nicholases 
and  Basils  poisoned,  all  this  indicates  that  the  palace  of  the 
Emperors  of  Russia  is  in  a  condition  of  flagrant  insalubrity. 
All  civilized  peoples  offer  this  detail  to  the  admiration  of  the 
thinker;  war;  now,  war,  civilized  war,  exhausts  and  sums  up 
all  the  forms  of  ruffianism,  from  the  brigandage  of  the  Tra- 
buceros  in  the  gorges  of  Mont  Jaxa  to  the  marauding  of  the 
Comanche  Indians  in  the  Doubtful  Pass.  'Bah !'  you  will  say 
to  me,  'but  Europe  is  certainly  better  than  Asia  ?'  I  admit 
that  Asia  is  a  farce ;  but  I  do  not  precisely  see  what  you  find  to 
laugh  at  in  the  Grand  Lama,  you  peoples  of  the  west,  who  have 
mingled  with  your  fashions  and  your  elegances  all  the  compli- 
cated filth  of  majesty,  from  the  dirty  chemise  of  Queen  Isa- 
bella to  the  chamber-chair  of  the  Dauphin.  Gentlemen  of  the 
human  race,  I  tell  you,  not  a  bit  of  it  1  It  is  at  Brussels  that 


106  MARIU8 

the  most  beer  is  consumed,  at  Stockholm  the  most  brandy,  at 
Madrid  the  most  chocolate,  at  Amsterdam  the  most  gin,  at 
London  the  most  wine,  at  Constantinople  the  most  coffee,  at 
Paris  the  most  absinthe;  there  are  all  the  useful  notions. 
Paris  carries  the  day,  in  short.  In  Paris,  even  the  rag-pickers 
are  sybarites;  Diogenes  would  have  loved  to  be  a  rag-picker 
of  the  Place  Maubert  better  than  to  be  a  philosopher  at  the 
Piraeus.  Learn  this  in  addition;  the  wineshops  of  the  rag- 
pickers are  called  bibines;  the  most  celebrated  are  the  Sauce- 
pan and  The,  Slaughter-House.  Hence,  tea-gardens,  go- 
guettes,  caboulots,  bouibuis,  mastroquets,  bastringues,  manez- 
ingues,  bibines  of  the  rag-pickers,  caravanseries  of  the  caliphs. 
I  certify  to  you,  I  am  a  voluptuary,  I  eat  at  Richard's  at  forty 
sous  a  head,  I  must  have  Persian  carpets  to  roll  naked  Cleo- 
patra in!  Where  is  Cleopatra?  Ah!  So  it  is  you,  Louison. 
Good  day." 

Thus  did  Grantaire,  more  than  intoxicated,  launch  into 
speech,  catching  at  the  dish-washer  in  her  passage,  from  his 
corner  in  the  back  room  of  the  Cafe  Musain. 

Bossuet,  extending  his  hand  towards  him,  tried  to  impose 
silence  on  him,  and  Grantaire  began  again  worse  than  ever: — 

"Aigle  de  Meaux.  down  with  your  paws.  You  produce  on 
me  no  effect  with  your  gesture  of  Hippocrates  refusing  Ar- 
taxerxes'  bric-a-brac.  I  excuse  you  from  the  task  of  soothing 
me.  Moreover,  I  am  sad.  What  do  you  wish  me  to  say  to 
you  ?  Man  is  evil,  man  is  deformed ;  the  butterfly  is  a  success, 
man  is  a  failure.  God  made  a  mistake  with  that  animal.  A 
crowd  offers  a  choice  of  ugliness.  The  first  comer  is  a  wretch. 
Femme — woman — rhymes  with  infame, — infamous.  Yes,  I 
have  the  spleen,  complicated  with  melancholy,  with  homesick- 
ness, plus  hypochondria,  and  I  am  vexed  and  I  rage,  and  I 
yawn,  and  I  am  bored,  and  I  am  tired  to  death,  and  I  am 
stupid  !  Let  God  go  to  the  devil !" 

"Silence  then,  capital  R !"  resumed  Bossuet,  who  was  dis- 
cussing a  point  of  law  behind  the  scenes,  and  who  was  plunged 
more  than  waist  high  in  a  phrase  of  judicial  slang,  of  which 
this  is  the  conclusion: — 


THE  FRIEXD8  OF  THE  A   It  C  107 

" — And  as  for  me,  although  T  am  hardly  a  legist,  and  at 
the  most,  an  amateur  attorney,  I  maintain  this:  that,  in 
accordance  with  the  terms  of  the  customs  of  Normandy,  at 
Saint-Michel,  and  for  each  year,  an  equivalent  must  be  paid 
to  the  profit  of  the  lord  of  the  manor,  saving  the  rights  of 
others,  and  by  all  and  several,  the  proprietors  as  well  as  those 
seized  with  inheritance,  and  that,  for  all  cmphyteuses,  leases, 
freeholds,  contracts  of  domain,  mortgages — 

"Echo,  plaintive  nymph,"  hummed  Grantaire. 

Near  Grantaire,  an  almost  silent  table,  a  sheet  of  paper,  an 
inkstand  and  a  pen  between  two  glasses  of  brandy,  announced 
that  a  vaudeville  was  being  sketched  out. 

This  great  affair  was  being  discussed  in  a  low  voice,  and  the 
two  heads  at  work  touched  each  other :  "Let  us  begin  by  find- 
ing names.  When  one  has  the  names,  one  finds  the  subject." 

"That  is  true.     Dictate.     I  will  write." 

"Monsieur  Dorimon." 

"An  independent  gentleman?" 

"Of  course." 

"His  daughter,  Celestine." 

"—tine.    What  next?" 

"Colonel  Sainval." 

"Sainval  is  stale.     I  should  say  Valsin." 

Beside  the  vaudeville  aspirants,  another  group,  which  was 
also  taking  advantage  of  the  uproar  to  talk  low,  was  discuss- 
ing a  duel.  An  old  fellow  of  thirty  was  counselling  a  young 
one  of  eighteen,  and  explaining  to  him  what  sort  of  an  adver- 
sary he  had  to  deal  with. 

"The  deuce !  Look  out  for  yourself.  He  is  a  fine  swords- 
man. His  play  is  neat.  He  has  the  attack,  no  wasted  feints, 
wrist,  dash,  lightning,  a  just  parade,  mathematical  parries, 
bigre!  and  he  is  left-handed." 

In  the  angle  opposite  Grantaire,  Joly  and  Bahorel  were 
playing  dominoes,  and  talking  of  love. 

"You  are  in  luck,  that  you  are,"  Joly  was  saying.  "You 
have  a  mistress  who  is  always  laughing." 

"That  is  a  fault  of  hers,"  returned  Bahorel.     "One's  mis- 


1 08  MAR1US 

tress  does  wrong  to  laugh.  That  encourages  one  to  deceive 
her.  To  see  her  gay  removes  your  remorse;  if  you  see  her 
sad,  your  conscience  pricks  you." 

"Ingrate  !  a  woman  who  laughs  is  such  a  good  thing !  And 
you  never  quarrel !" 

"That  is  because  of  the  treaty  which  we  have  made.  On 
forming  our  little  Holy  Alliance  we  assigned  ourselves  each 
our  frontier,  which  we  never  cross.  What  is  situated  on  the 
side  of  winter  belongs  to  Vaud,  on  the  side  of  the  wind  to  Gex. 
Hence  the  peace." 

"Peace  is  happiness  digesting." 

"And  you,  Jolllly,  where  do  you  stand  in  your  entanglement 
with  Mamselle — you  know  whom  I  mean?" 

"She  sulks  at  me  with  cruel  patience." 

"Yet  you  are  a  lover  to  soften  the  heart  with  gauntness." 

"Alas'!" 

"In  your  place,  I  would  let  her  alone." 

"That  is  easy  enough  to  say." 

"And  to  do.    Is  not  her  name  Musichetta?" 

"Yes.  Ah !  my  poor  Bahorel,  she  is  a  superb  girl,  very 
literary,  with  tiny  feet,  little  hands,  she  dresses  well,  and  is 
white  and  dimpled,  with  the  eyes  of  a  fortune-teller.  I  am 
wild  over  her." 

"My  dear  fellow,  then  in  order  to  please  her,  you  must  be 
elegant,  and  produce  effects  with  your  knees.  Buy  a  good  pair 
of  trousers  of  double-milled  cloth  at  Staub's.  That  will 
assist." 

"At  what  price?"   shouted  Grantaire. 

The  third  corner  was  delivered  up  to  a  poetical  discussion. 
Pagan  mythology  was  giving  battle  to  Christian  mythology. 
The  question  was  about  Olympus,  whose  part  was  taken  by 
Jean  Prouvairc,  out  of  pure  romanticism. 

Jean  Prouvaire  was  timid  only  in  repose.  Once  excited,  he 
burst  forth,  a  sort  of  mirth  accentuated  his  enthusiasm,  and 
he  was  at  once  both  laughing  and  lyric. 

"Let  us  not  insult  the  gods,"  said  he.  "The  gods  may  not 
have  taken  their  departure.  Jupiter  does  not  impress  me  as 


THE  FRIENDH  Ol<'  THE  ABC  109 

dead.  The  gods  are  dreams,  you  say.  Well,  even  in  nature, 
such  as  it  is  to-day,  after  the  flight  of  these  dreams,  we  still 
find  all  the  grand  old  pagan  myths.  Such  and  such  a 
mountain  with  the  profile  of  a  citadel,  like  the  Vigncmale, 
for  example,  is  still  to  me  the  headdress  of  Cyhele ;  it  has  not 
been  proved  to  me  that  Pan  does  not  come  at  night  to  breathe 
into  the  hollow  trunks  of  the  willows,  stopping  up  the  holes 
in  turn  with  his  fingers,  and  1  have  always  believed  that  lo  had 
something  to  do  with  the  cascade  of  Pissevache." 

In  the  last  corner,  they  were  talking  politics.  The  Charter 
which  had  been  granted  was  getting  roughly  handled.  Combe- 
ferre  was  upholding  it  weakly.  Courfeyruc  was  energetically 
making  a  breach  in  it.  On  the  table  lay  an  unfortunate  copy 
of  the  famous  Touquet  Charter.  Courfeyrac  had  seized  it, 
and  was  brandishing  it,  mingling  with  his  arguments  the 
rattling  of  this  sheet  of  paper. 

"In  the  first  place,  I  won't  have  any  kings ;  if  it  were  only 
from  an  economical  point  of  view,  I  don't  want  any ;  a  king  is 
a  parasite.  One  does  not  have  kings  gratis.  Listen  to  this : 
the  dearness  of  kings.  At  the  death  of  Francois  I.,  the 
national  debt  of  France  amounted  to  an  income  of  thirty 
thousand  livres;  at  the  death  of  Louis  XIV.  it  was  two  mil- 
liards, six  hundred  millions,  at  twenty-eight  livres  the  mark, 
which  was  equivalent  in  17(50,  according  to  Desmarets,  to  four 
milliards,  five  hundred  millions,  which  would  to-day  be  equiv- 
alent to  twelve  milliards.  In  the  second  place,  and  no  offence 
to  Combeferre,  a  charter  granted  is  but  a  poor  expedient  of 
civilization.  To  save  the  transition,  to  soften  the  passage,  to 
deaden  the  shock,  to  cause  the  nation  to  pass  insensibly  from 
the  monarchy  to  democracy  by  the  practice  of  constitutional 
fictions, — what  detestable  reasons  all  those  are  !  Xo  !  no !  let 
us  never  enlighten  the  people  with  false  daylight.  Principles 
dwindle  and  pale  in  your  constitutional  cellar.  Xo  illegiti- 
macy, no  compromise,  no  grant  from  the  king  to  the  people. 
In  all  such  grants  there  is  an  Article  14.  By  the  side  of  the 
hand  which  gives  there  is  the  claw  which  snatches  back.  I 
refuse  your  charter  point-blank.  A  charter  is  a  mask;  the  lie 


MARIUS 

lurks  beneath  it.  A  people  which  accepts  a  charter  abdicates. 
The  law  is  only  the  law  when  entire.  No !  no  charter !" 

It  was  winter;  a  couple  of  fagots  were  crackling  in  the  fire- 
place. This  was  tempting,  and  Courfeyrac  could  not  resist. 
He  crumpled  the  poor  Touquet  Charter  in  his  fist,  and  flung 
it  in  the  fire.  The  paper  flashed  up.  Combeferre  watched  the 
masterpiece  of  Louis  XVIII.  burn  philosophically,  and  con- 
tented himself  with  saying: — 

"The  charter  metamorphosed  into  flame." 

And  sarcasms,  sallies,  jests,  that  French  thing  which  is 
called  entrain,  and  that  English  thing  which  is  called  humor, 
good  and  bad  taste,  good  and  bad  reasons,  all  the  wild  pyro- 
technics of  dialogue,  mounting  together  and  crossing  from 
all  points  of  the  room,  produced  a  sort  of  merry  bombardment 
over  their  heads. 

CHAPTER   V 

ENLARGEMENT  OF  HORIZON 

THE  shocks  of  youthful  minds  among  themselves  have  this 
admirable  property,  that  one  can  never  foresee  the  spark,  nor 
divine  the  lightning  flash.  What  will  dart  out  presently?  No 
one  knows.  The  burst  of  laughter  starts  from  a  tender 
feeling. 

At  the  moment  of  jest,  the  serious  makes  its  entry.  Im- 
pulses depend  on  the  first  chance  word.  The  spirit  of  each  is 
sovereign,  jest  suffices  to  open  the  field  to  the  unexpected. 
These  are  conversations  with  abrupt  turns,  in  which  the  per- 
spective changes  suddenly.  Chance  is  the  stage-manager  of 
such  conversations. 

A  severe  thought,  starting  oddly  from  a  clash  of  words, 
suddenly  traversed  the  conflict  of  quips  in  which  Grantaire, 
Bahorel,  Prouvaire.  Bossuet,  Combeferre,  and  Courfeyrac 
were  confusedly  fencing. 

How  does  a  phrase  crop  up  in  a  dialogue?  Whence  comes 
it  that  it  suddenly  impresses  itself  on  the  attention  of  those 


THE  FKIEXD8  OF  THE  ABC 

who  hoar  it?  We  have  just  said,  that  no  one  knows  anything 
about  it.  In  the  midst  of  the  uproar,  Bossuet  all  at  once 
terminated  some  apostrophe  to  Combeferre,  with  this  date: — 

"June  18th,  1815,  Waterloo." 

At  this  name  of  Waterloo,  Marius,  who  was  leaning  his 
elbows  on  a  table,  beside  a  glass  of  water,  removed  his  wrist 
from  beneath  his  chin,  and  began  to  gaze  fixedly  at  the 
audience. 

"Pardieu!"  exclaimed  Courfeyrac  ("Parbleu"  was  falling 
into  disuse  at  this  period),  "that  number  18  is  strange  and 
strikes  me.  It  is  Bonaparte's  fatal  number.  Place  Louis  in 
front  and  Brumaire  behind,  you  have  the  whole  destiny  of  the 
man.  with  this  significant  peculiarity,  that  ^he  end  treads  close 
on  the  heels  of  the  commencement." 

Enjolras,  who  had  remained  mute  up  to  that  point,  broke 
the  silence  and  addressed  this  remark  to  Combeferre: — 

"You  mean  to  say,  the  crime  and  the  expiation." 

This  word  crime  overpassed  the  measure  of  what  Marius, 
who  was  already  greatly  agitated  by  the  abrupt  evocation  of 
Waterloo,  could  accept. 

He  rose,  walked  slowly  to  the  map  of  France  spread  out  on 
the  wall,  and  at  whose  base  an  island  was  visible  in  a  separate 
compartment,  laid  his  finger  on  this  compartment  and  said  : — 

"Corsica,  a  little  island  which  has  rendered  France  very 
great." 

This  was  like  a  breath  of  icy  air.  All  ceased  talking.  They 
felt  that  something  was  on  the  point  of  occurring. 

Bahorel,  replying  to  Bossuet,  was  just  assuming  an  attitude 
of  the  torso  to  which  he  was  addicted.  He  gave  it  up  to  listen. 

Enjolras,  whose  blue  eye  was  not  fixed  on  any  one,  and  who 
seemed  to  be  gazing  at  space,  replied,  without  glancing  at 
Marius: — 

"France  needs  no  Corsica  to  be  great.  France  is  great 
because  she  is  France.  Quia  nomina  leo." 

Marius  felt  no  desire  to  retreat;  he  turned  towards  En- 
jolras, and  his  voice  burst  forth  with  a  vibration  which  came 
from  a  quiver  of  his  very  being: — 


H2  MARIU8 

"God  forbid  that  I  should  diminish  France!  But  amalga- 
mating Napoleon  with  her  is  not  diminishing  her.  Come !  let 
us  argue  the  question.  I  am  a  new  comer  among  you,  but  I 
will  confess  that  you  amaze  me.  Where  do  we  stand?  Who 
are  we  ?  Who  are  you  ?  Who  am  I  ?  Let  us  come  to  an 
explanation  about  the  Emperor.  I  hear  you  say  Buonaparte, 
accenting  the  u  like  the  Royalists.  I  warn  you  that  my  grand- 
father does  better  still ;  he  says  Buonaparte.  I  thought  you 
were  young  men.  Where,  then,  is  your  enthusiasm?  And 
what  are  you  doing  with  it?  Whom  do  you  admire,  if  you  do 
not  admire  the  Emperor?  And  what  more  do  you  want?  If 
you  will  have  none  of  that  great  man,  what  great  men  would 
you  like?  He  had  everything.  He  was  complete.  He  had 
in  his  brain  the  sum  of  human  faculties.  He  made  codes  like 
Justinian,  he  dictated  like  Caesar,  his  conversation  was 
mingled  with  the  lightning-flash  of  Pascal,  with  the  thunder- 
clap of  Tacitus,  he  made  history  and  he  wrote  it,  his  bulletins 
are  Iliads,  he  combined  the  cipher  of  Newton  with  the  meta- 
phor of  Mahomet,  he  left  behind  him  in  the  East  words  as 
great  as  the  pyramids,  at  Tilsit  he  taught  Emperors  majesty, 
at  the  Academy  of  Sciences  he  replied  to  Laplace,  in  the 
Council  of  State  he  held  his  own  against  Merlin,  he  gave  a 
soul  to  the  geometry  of  the  first,  and  to  the  chicanery  of  the 
last,  he  was  a  legist  with  the  attorneys  and  sidereal  with  the 
astronomers;  like  Cromwell  blowing  out  one  of  two  candles, 
he  went  to  the  Temple  to  bargain  for  a  curtain  tassel ;  he  saw 
everything;  he  knew  everything;  which  did  not  prevent  him 
from  laughing  good-naturedly  beside  the  cradle  of  his  little 
child ;  and  all  at  once,  frightened  Europe  lent  an  ear,  armies 
put  themselves  in  motion,  parks  of  artillery  rumbled,  pon- 
toons stretched  over  the  rivers,  clouds  of  cavalry  galloped  in 
the  storm,  cries,  trumpets,  a  trembling  of  thrones  in  every 
direction,  the  frontiers  of  kingdoms  oscillated  on  the  map,  the 
sound  of  a  superhuman  sword  was  heard,  as  it  was  drawn  from 
its  sheath ;  they  beheld  him,  him,  rise  erect  on  the  horizon 
with  a  blazing  brand  in  his  hand,  and  a  glow  in  his  eyes, 
unfolding  amid  the  thunder,  his  two  wings,  the  grand 


THE  FRIENDS  OF  TEE  ABC 

army  and  the  old  guard,  and  he  was  the  archangel  of 
war !" 

All  held  their  peace,  and  Enjolras  bowed  his  head.  Silence 
always  produces  somewhat  the  effect  of  acquiescence,  of  the 
enemy  being  driven  to  the  wall.  Marius  continued  with 
increased  enthusiasm,  and  almost  without  pausing  for 
breath : — 

"Let  us  be  just,  my  friends !  What  a  splendid  destiny  for 
a  nation  to  be  the  Empire  of  such  an  Emperor,  when  that 
nation  is  France  and  when  it  adds  its  own  genius  to  the  genius 
of  that  man !  To  appear  and  to  reign,  to  march  and  to 
triumph,  to  have  for  halting-places  all  capitals,  to  take  his 
grenadiers  and  to  make  kings  of  them,  to  decree  the  falls  of 
dynasties,  and  to  transfigure  Europe  at  the  pace  of  a  charge ; 
to  make  you  feel  that  when  you  threaten  you  lay  your  hand 
on  the  hilt  of  the  sword  of  God;  to  follow  in  a  single  man, 
Hannibal,  Csesar,  Charlemagne ;  to  be  the  people  of  some  one 
who  mingles  with  your  dawns  the  startling  announcement  of 
a  battle  won,  to  have  the  cannon  of  the  Invalidcs  to  rouse  you 
in  the  morning,  to  hurl  into  abysses  of  light  prodigious  words 
which  flame  forever,  Marengo,  Arcola,  Austerlitz,  Jena, 
Wagram !  To  cause  constellations  of  victories  to  flash  forth 
at  each  instant  from  the  zenith  of  the  centuries,  to  make  the 
French  Empire  a  pendant  to  the  Roman  Empire,  to  be  the 
great  nation  and  to  give  birth  to  the  grand  army,  to  make  its 
legions  fly  forth  over  all  the  earth,  as  a  mountain  sends  out 
its  eagles  on  all  sides  to  conquer,  to  dominate,  to  strike  with 
lightning,  to  be  in  Europe  a  sort  of  nation  gilded  through 
glory,  to  sound  athwart  the  centuries  a  trumpet-blast  of 
Titans,  to  conquer  the  world  twice,  by  conquest  and  by 
dazzling,  that  is  sublime;  and  what  greater  thing  is  there?" 

"To  be  free,"  said  Combeferre. 

Marius  lowered  his  head  in  his  turn ;  that  cold  and  simple 
word  had  traversed  his  epic  effusion  like  a  blade  of  steel,  and 
he  felt  it  vanishing  within  him.  When  he  raised  his  eyes, 
Combeferre  was  no  longer  there.  Probably  satisfied  witli  his 
reply  to  the  apotheosis,  he  had  just  taken  his  departure,  and 


MAR1V8 

all,  with  the  exception  of  Enjolras,  had  followed  him.  The 
room  had  been  emptied.  Enjolras,  left  alone  with  Marius, 
was  gazing  gravely  at  him.  Marius,  however,  having  rallied 
his  ideas  to  some  extent,  did  not  consider  himself  beaten; 
there  lingered  in  him  a  trace  of  inward  fermentation  which 
was  on  the  point,  no  doubt,  of  translating  itself  into  syllogisms 
arrayed  against  Enjolras,  when  all  of  a  sudden,  they  heard 
some  one  singing  on  the  stairs  as  he  went.  It  was  Combeferre, 
and  this  is  what  he  was  singing: — 

"Si  Cfsar  m'avait  donne"1 

La  gloire  et  la  guerre, 
Et  qu'il  me  fallait  quitter 

L'amour  de  ma  mere, 
Je  dirais  au  grand  CCsar: 

Reprends   ton   sceptre  et  ton   char, 
J'aime  mieux  ma  mere,  o  gue" ! 

J'aime  mieux  ma  mere!" 

The  wild  and  tender  accents  with  which  Combeferre  sang 
communicated  to  this  couplet  a  sort  of  strange  grandeur. 
Marius,  thoughtfully,  and  with  his  eyes  diked  on  the  ceiling, 
repeated  almost  mechanically:  "My  mother? — " 

At  that  moment,  he  felt  Enjolras'  hand  on  his  shoulder. 

"Citizen,"  said  Enjolras  to  him,  "my  mother  is  the 
Kepublic." 

CHAPTER   VI 

RES  ANOUSTA 

THAT  evening  left  Marius  profoundly  shaken,  and  with  a 
melancholy  shadow  in  his  soul,  lie  felt  what  the  earth  may 
possibly  feel,  at  the  moment  when  it  is  torn  open  with  the 
iron,  in  order  that  grain  may  be  deposited  within  it;  it  feels 
only  the  wound ;  the  quiver  of  the  germ  and  the  joy  of  the 
fruit  only  arrive  later. 

'If  C.-rsar  had  given  me  glory  and  war,  and  I  wore  obliged  to  quit 
my  mother's  love,  I  would  say  to  great  Cirpar,  "Take  back  thy  sceptre 
and  thy  chariot;  1  prefer  the  love  of  my  mother." 


THE  FRIENDS  OF  THE  ABC 

Marius  was  gloomy.  He  had  but  just  acquired  a  faith; 
must  he  then  reject  it  already?  He  affirmed  to  himself  that 
he  would  not.  Tie  declared  to  himself  that  he  would  not 
doubt,  and  he  began  to  doubt  in  spite  of  himself.  To  stand 
between  two  religions,  from  one  of  which  you  have  not  as  yet 
emerged,  and  another  into  which  you  have  not  yet  entered, 
is  intolerable;  and  twilight  is  pleasing  only  to  bat-like  souls. 
Marius  was  clear-eyed,  and  he  required  the  true  light.  The 
half-lights  of  doubt  pained  him.  Whatever  may  have  been 
his  desire  to  remain  where  he  was,  he  could  not  halt  there, 
he  was  irresistibly  constrained  to  continue,  to  advance,  to 
examine,  to  think,  to  march  further.  Whither  would  this 
lead  him  ?  He  feared,  after  having  taken  so  many  steps  which 
had  brought  him  nearer  to  his  father,  to  now  take  a  step  which 
should  estrange  him  from  that  father.  His  discomfort  was 
augmented  by  all  the  reflections  which  occurred  to  him.  An 
escarpment  rose  around  him.  He  was  in  accord  neither  with 
his  grandfather  nor  with  his  friends;  daring  in  the  eyes  of 
the  one,  he  was  behind  the  times  in  the  eyes  of  the  others; 
and  he  recognized  the  fact  that  he  was  doubly  isolated,  on  the 
side  of  age  and  on  the  side  of  youth.  He  ceased  to  go  to  the 
Cafe  Musain. 

In  the  troubled  state  of  his  conscience,  he  no  longer  thought 
of  certain  serious  sides  of  existence.  The  realities  of  life  do 
not  allow  themselves  to  be  forgotten.  They  soon  elbowed  him 
abruptly. 

One  morning,  the  proprietor  of  the  hotel  entered  Marius' 
room  and  said  to  him : — 

"Monsieur  Courfeyrac  answered  for  you." 

"Yes." 

"But  I  must  have  my  money." 

"Request  Courfeyrac  to  come  and  talk  with  me,"  said 
Marius. 

Courfeyrac  having  made  his  appearance,  the  host  left  them. 
Marius  then  told  him  what  it  had  not  before  occurred  to  him 
to  relate,  that  he  was  the  same  as  alone  in  the  world,  and  had 
no  relatives. 


M  ARIL'S 

"What  is  to  become  of  you  ?"  said  Courfeyrac. 

"I  do  not  know  in  the  least,"  replied  Marius. 

"What  are  you  going  to  do?" 

"I  do  not  know." 

"Have  you  any  money?" 

"Fifteen  francs." 

"Do  you  want  me  to  lend  you  some?" 

"Never." 

"Have  you  clothes?" 

"Here  is  what  I  have." 

"Have  you  trinkets?" 

"A  watch." 

"Silver?" 

"Gold;  here  it  is." 

"I  know  a  clothes-dealer  who  will  take  your  frock-coat  and 
a  pair  of  trousers." 

"That  is  good." 

"You  will  then  have  only  a  pair  of  trousers,  a  waistcoat,  a 
hat  and  a  coat." 

"And  my  boots." 

"What !  you  will  not  go  barefoot  ?    What  opulence !" 

"That  will  be  enough." 

"I  know  a  watchmaker  who  will  buy  your  watch." 

"That  is  good." 

"No;  it  is  not  good.     What  will  you  do  after  that?" 

"Whatever  is  necessary.     Anything  honest,  that  is  to  say." 

"Do  you  know  English?" 

"No." 

"Do  you  know  German?" 

"No." 

"So  much  the  worse." 

"Why  ?" 

"Because  one  of  my  friends,  a  publisher,  is  getting  up  a 
sort  of  an  encyclopaedia,  for  which  you  might  have  translated 
Knglish  or  German  articles.  It  is  badly  paid  work,  but  one 
can  live  by  it." 

"I  will  learn  English  and  German." 


THE  FRIENDS  OF  THE  ARC 


117 


"And  in  the  meanwhile?" 

"In  the  meanwhile  I  will  live  on  my  clothes  and  my  watch." 

The  clothes-dealer  was  sent  for.  He  paid  twenty  francs  for 
the  cast-off  garments.  They  went  to  the  watchmaker's.  He 
bought  the  watch  for  forty-five  francs. 

"That  is  not  bad,"  said  Marius  to  Courfeyrac,  on  their  rc.- 
turn  to  the  hotel,  "with  my  fifteen  francs,  that  makes  eighty." 

"And  the  hotel  bill  ?"  observed  Conrfeyrac. 

"Hello,  I  had  forgotten  that,"  said  Marius. 

The  landlord  presented  his  bill,  which  had  to  be  paid  on  the 
spot.  It  amounted  to  seventy  francs. 

"I  have  ten  francs  left,"  said  Marius. 

"The  deuce,"  exclaimed  Courfeyrac,  "you  will  eat  up  five 
francs  while  you  are  learning  English,  and  five  while  learning 
German.  That  will  be  swallowing  a  tongue  very  fast,  or  a 
hundred  sous  very  slowly." 

In  the  meantime  Aunt  Gillenormand,  a  rather  good-hearted 
person  at  bottom  in  difficulties,  had  finally  hunted  up  Marius' 
abode. 

One  morning,  on  his  return  from  the  law-school,  Marius 
found  a  letter  from  his  aunt,  and  the  sixty  pistoles,  that  is  to 
say,  six  hundred  francs  in  gold,  in  a  sealed  box. 

Marius  sent  back  the  thirty  louis  to  his  aunt,  with  a  respect- 
ful letter,  in  which  he  stated  that  he  had  sufficient  means  of 
subsistence  and  that  he  should  be  able  thenceforth  to  supply  all 
his  needs.  At  that  moment,  he  had  three  francs  left. 

His  aunt  did  not  inform  his  grandfather  of  this  refusil.  for 
fear  of  exasperating  him.  Besides,  had  he  not  said:  "Let  me 
never  hear  the  name  of  that  blood-drinker  again !" 

Marius  left  the  hotel  do  la  Porte  Saint- Jacques,  as  he  did 
not  wish  to  run  in  debt  there. 


BOOK   FIFTH.— THE   EXCELLENCE   OF   MISFOR- 
TUNE 


MARIOS    INDIGENT 

LIFE  became  hard  for  Marius.  It  was  nothing  to  eat  his 
clothes  and  his  watch.  He  ate  of  that  terrible,  inexpressible 
thing  that  is  called  de  la  vache  enrage;  that  is  to  say,  he 
endured  great  hardships  and  privations.  A  terrible  thing  it  is, 
containing  days  without  bread,  nights  without  sleep,  evenings 
without  a  candle,  a  hearth  without  a  fire,  weeks  without  work, 
a  future  without  hope,  a  coat  out  at  the  elbows,  an  old  hat 
which  evokes  the  laughter  of  young  girls,  a  door  which  one 
finds  locked  on  one  at  night  because  one's  rent  is  not  paid,  the 
insolence  of  the  porter  and  the  cook-shop  man,  the  sneers  of 
neighbors,  humiliations,  dignity  trampled  on,  work  of  what- 
ever nature  accepted,  disgusts,  bitterness,  despondency.  Ma- 
rius learned  how  all  this  is  eaten,  and  how  such  are  often  the 
only  things  which  one  has  to  devour.  At  that  moment  of  his 
existence  when  a  man  needs  his  pride,  because  he  needs  love,  he 
felt  that  he  was  jeered  at  because  he  was  badly  dressed,  and 
ridiculous  because  he  was  poor.  At  the  age  when  youth  swells 
tlie  heart  with  imperial  pride,  he  dropped  his  eyes  more  than 
once  on  his  dilapidated  boots,  and  he  knew  the  unjust  shame 
and  the  poignant  blushes  of  wretchedness.  Admirable  and 
terrible  trial  from  which  the  feeble  emerge  base,  from  which 
the  strong  emerge  sublime.  A  crucible  into  which  destiny 
casts  a  man,  whenever  it  desires  a  scoundrel  or  a  demi-god. 

For  many  great  deeds  are  performed  in  petty  combats. 
There  are  instances  of  bravery  ignored  and  obstinate,  which 


THE  EXCELLENCE  OF  MISFORTUNE 

defend  themselves  step  by  step  in  that  fatal  onslaught  of  ne- 
cessities and  turpitudes.  Noble  and  mysterious  triumphs 
which  no  eye  beholds,  which  are  requited  with  no  renown, 
which  are  saluted  with  no  trumpet  blast.  Life,  misfortune, 
isolation,  abandonment,  poverty,  are  the  fields  of  battle  which 
have  their  heroes;  obscure  heroes,  who  are,  sometimes,  grander 
than  the  heroes  who  win  renown. 

Firm  and  rare  natures  are  thus  created;  misery,  almost 
always  a  step-mother,  is  sometimes  a  mother ;  destitution  gives 
birth  to  might  of  soul  and  spirit;  distress  is  the  nurse  of  pride; 
unhappmess  is  a  good  milk  for  the  magnanimous. 

There  came  a  moment  in  Marius'  life,  when  he  swept  his 
own  landing,  when  he  bought  his  sou's  worth  of  Brie  cheese  at 
the  fruiterer's,  when  he  waited  until  twilight  had  fallen  to  slip 
into  the  baker's  and  purchase  a  loaf,  which  he  carried  oft*  fur- 
tively to  his  attic  as  though  he  had  stolen  it.  Sometimes  there 
could  be  seen  gliding  into  the  butcher's  shop  on  the  corner,  in 
the  midst  of  the  bantering  cooks  who  elbowed  him,  an  awkward 
young  man,  carrying  his  books  under  his  arm,  who  had  a  timid 
yet  angry  air,  who,  on  entering,  removed  his  hat  from  a  brow 
whereon  stood  drops  of  perspiration,  made  a  profound  bow  to 
the  butcher's  astonished  wife,  asked  for  a  mutton  cutlet,  paid 
six  or  seven  sous  for  it,  wrapped  it  up  in  a  paper,  put  it  under 
his  arm,  between  two  books,  and  went  away.  It  was  Marius. 
On  this  cutlet,  which  he  cooked  for  himself,  he  lived  for  three 
days. 

On  the  first  day  he  ate  the  meat,  on  the  second  he  ate  the 
fat,  on  the  third  he  gnawed  the  bone.  Aunt  Gillenormand 
made  repeated  attempts,  and  sent  him  the  sixty  pistoles  several 
times.  Marius  returned  them  on  every  occasion,  saying  that 
he  needed  nothing. 

He  was  still  in  mourning  for  his  father  when  the  revolution 
which  we  have  just  described  was  effected  within  him.  From 
that  time  forth,  he  had  not  put  off  his  black  garments.  But 
his  garments  were  quitting  him.  The  day  came  when  he  had 
no  longer  a  coat.  The  trousers  would  go  next.  What  was  to 
be  done?  Courfeyrac,  to  whom  he  had,  on  his  side,  done  some 


120  MARIUS 

good  turns,  gave  him  an  old  coat.  For  thirty  sous,  Marius  got 
it  turned  by  some  porter  or  other,  and  it  was  a  new  coat.  But 
this  coat  was  green.  Then  Marius  ceased  to  go  out  until  after 
nightfall.  This  made  his  coat  black.  As  he  wished  always  to 
appear  in  mourning,  he  clothed  himself  with  the  night. 

In  spite  of  all  this,  he  got  admitted  to  practice  as  a  lawyer. 
He  was  supposed  to  live  in  Courfeyrac's  room,  which  was  de- 
cent, and  where  a  certain  number  of  law-books  backed  up  and 
completed  by  several  dilapidated  volumes  of  romance,  passed 
as  the  library  required  by  the  regulations.  He  had  his  letters 
addressed  to  Courfeyrac's  quarters. 

When  Marius  became  a  lawyer,  he  informed  his  grandfather 
of  the  fact  in  a  letter  which  was  cold  but  full  of  submission  and 
respect.  M.  Gillenormand  trembled  as  he  took  the  letter,  read 
it,  tore  it  in  four  pieces,  and  threw  it  into  the  waste-basket. 
Two  or  three  days  later,  Mademoiselle  Gillenormand  heard  her 
father,  who  was  alone  in  his  room,  talking  aloud  to  himself. 
He  always  did  this  whenever  he  was  greatly  agitated.  She 
listened,  and  the  old  man  was  saying:  "If  you  were  not  a 
fool,  you  would  know  that  one  cannot  be  a  baron  and  a  lawyer 
at  the  same  time." 


CHAPTER   II 

MARIUS    POOR 

IT  is  the  same  with  wretchedness  as  with  everything  else.  It 
ends  by  becoming  bearable.  It  finally  assumes  a  form,  and 
adjusts  itself.  One  vegetates,  that  is  to  say,  one  develops  in  a 
certain  meagre  fashion,  which  is,  however,  sufiicient  for  life. 
This  is  the  mode  in  which  the  existence  of  Marius  Pontmercy 
was  arranged: 

He  had  passed  the  worst  straits ;  the  narrow  pass  was  open- 
ing out  a  little  in  front  of  him.  By  dint  of  toil,  perseverance, 
courage,  and  will,  he  had  managed  to  draw  from  his  work 
about  seven  hundred  francs  a  year.  He  had  learned  German 


THE  EXCELLENCE  OF  MISFORTUNE 

and  English;  thanks  to  Courfeyrac,  who  had  put  him  in  com- 
munication with  his  friend  the  publisher,  Marius  filled  the 
modest  post  of  utility  man  in  the  literature  of  the  publishing 
house.  He  drew  up  prospectuses,  translated  newspapers,  an- 
notated editions,  compiled  biographies,  etc. ;  net  product,  year 
in  and  year  out,  seven  hundred  francs.  He  lived  on  it.  How  ? 
Not  so  badly.  We  will  explain. 

Marius  occupied  in  the  Gorbeau  house,  for  an  annual  sum  of 
thirty  francs,  a  den  minus  a  fireplace,  called  a  cabinet,  which 
contained  only  the  most  indispensable  articles  of  furniture. 
This  furniture  belonged  to  him.  He  gave  three  francs  a  month 
to  the  old  principal  tenant  to  come  and  sweep  his  hole,  and  to 
bring  him  a  little  hot  water  every  morning,  a  fresh  egg,  and  a 
penny  roll.  He  breakfasted  on  this  egg  and  roll.  His  break- 
fast varied  in  cost  from  two  to  four  sous,  according  as  eggs 
were  dear  or  cheap.  At  six  o'clock  in  the  evening  he  descended 
the  Rue  Saint-Jacques  to  dine  at  Rousseau's,  opposite  Basset's, 
the  stamp-dealer's,  on  the  corner  of  the  Rue  des  Mathurins. 
He  ate  no  soup.  He  took  a  six-sou  plate  of  meat,  a  half-por- 
tion of  vegetables  for  three  sous,  and  a  three-sou  dessert.  For 
three  sous  he  got  as  much  bread  as  he  wished.  As  for  wine, 
he  drank  water.  When  he  paid  at  the  desk  where  Madam 
Rousseau,  at  that  period  still  plump  and  rosy,  majestically 
presided,  he  gave  a  sou  to  the  waiter,  and  Madam  Rousseau 
gave  him  a  smile.  Then  he  went  away.  For  sixteen  sous  he 
had  a  smile  and  a  dinner. 

This  Restaurant  Rousseau,  where  so  few  bottles  and  so  many 
water  carafes  were  emptied,  was  a  calming  potion  rather  than 
a  restaurant.  It  no  longer  exists.  The  proprietor  had  a  fine 
nickname:  he  was  called  Rousseau  the  Aquatic. 

Thus,  breakfast  four  sous,  dinner  sixteen  sous;  his  food  cost 
him  twenty  sous  a  day ;  which  made  three  hundred  and  sixty- 
five  francs  a  year.  Add  the  thirty  francs  for  rent,  and  the 
thirty-six  francs  to  the  old  woman,  plus  a  few  trifling  ex- 
penses; for  four  hundred  and  fifty  francs,  Marius  was  fed, 
lodged,  and  waited  on.  His  clothing  cost  him  a  hundred 
francs,  his  linen  fifty  francs,  his  washing  fifty  francs ;  the 


122  M  ARIL'S 

whole  did  not  exceed  six  hundred  and  fifty  francs.  He  was 
rich.  He  sometimes  lent  ten  francs  to  a  friend.  Courfeyrac 
had  once  been  able  to  borrow  sixty  francs  of  him.  As  far  as 
fire  was  concerned,  as  Marius  had  no  fireplace,  he  had  "simpli- 
fied matters." 

Marius  always  had  two  complete  suits  of  clothes,  the  one 
old,  '"for  every  day";  the  other,  brand  new  for  special  occa- 
sions. Both  were  black.  He  had  but  three  shirts,  one  on  his 
person,  the  second  in  the  commode,  and  the  third  in  the  wash- 
erwoman's hands.  He  renewed  them  as  they  wore  out.  They 
were  always  ragged,  which  caused  him  to  button  his  coat  to  the 
chin. 

It  had  required  years  for  Marius  to  attain  to  this  flourishing 
condition.  Hard  years ;  difficult,  some  of  them,  to  traverse, 
others  to  climb.  Marius  had  not  failed  for  a  single  day.  He 
had  endured  everything  in  the  way  of  destitution ;  he  had  done 
everything  except  contract  debts.  He  did  himself  the  justice 
to  say  that  he  had  never  owed  any  one  a  sou.  A  debt  was,  to 
him,  the  beginning  of  slavery.  He  even  said  to  himself,  that  a 
creditor  is  worse  than  a  master;  for  the  master  possesses  only 
your  person,  a  creditor  possesses  your  dignity  and  can  admin- 
ister to  it  a  box  on  the  ear.  Rather  than  borrow,  he  went 
without  food.  He  had  passed  many  a  day  fasting.  Feeling 
that  all  extremes  meet,  and  that,  if  one  is  not  on  one's  guard, 
lowered  fortunes  may  lead  to  baseness  of  soul,  he  kept  a  jealous 
watch  on  his  pride.  Such  and  such  a  formality  or  action, 
which,  in  any  other  situation  would  have  appeared  merely  a 
deference  to  him,  now  seemed  insipidity,  and  he  nerved  himself 
against  it.  His  face  wore  a  sort  of  severe  flush.  He  was  timid 
even  to  rudeness. 

During  all  these  trials  he  had  felt  himself  encouraged  and 
even  uplifted,  at  times,  by  a  secret  force  that  he  possessed  with- 
in himself.  The  soul  aids  the  body,  and  at  certain  moments, 
raises  it.  It  is  the  only  bird  which  bears  up  its  own  cage. 

Besides  his  father's  name,  another  name  was  graven  in  Ma- 
rius' heart,  the  name  of  Thenardier.  Marius,  with  his  grave 
and  enthusiastic  nature,  surrounded  with  a  sort  of  aureole  the 


THE  EXCELLENCE  OF  MISFORTUNE 

man  to  whom,  in  his  thoughts,  he  owed  his  father's  life, — that 
intrepid  sergeant  who  had  saved  the  colonel  amid  the  bullets 
and  the  cannon-halls  of  Waterloo.  He  never  separated  the 
memory  of  this  man  from  the  memory  of  his  father,  and  he 
associated  them  in  his  veneration.  It  was  a  sort  of  worship  in 
two  steps,  with  the  grand  altar  for  the  colonel  and  the  lesser 
one  for  Thenardier.  What  redoubled  the  tenderness  of  his 
gratitude  towards  Thenardier,  was  the  idea  of  the  distress  into 
which  he  knew  that  Thenardier  had  fallen,  and  which  had  en- 
gulfed the  latter.  Marius  had  learned  at  Montfermeil  of  the 
ruin  and  bankruptcy  of  the  unfortunate  inn-keeper.  Since 
that  time,  he  had  made  unheard-of  efforts  to  find  traces  of  him 
and  to  reach  him  in  that  dark  abyss  of  misery  in  which  Thenar- 
dier had  disappeared.  Marius  had  beaten  the  whole  country; 
he  had  gone  to  Chelles,  to  Bondy,  to  Gourney,  to  Nogent,  to 
Lagny.  He  had  persisted  for  three  years,  expending  in  these 
explorations  the  little  money  which  he  had  laid  by.  Xo  one 
had  been  able  to  give  him  any  news  of  Thenardier:  he  was 
supposed  to  have  gone  abroad.  His  creditors  had  also  sought 
him,  with  less  love  than  Marius,  but  with  as  much  assiduity, 
and  had  not  been  able  to  lay  their  hands  on  him.  Marius 
blamed  himself,  and  was  almost  angry  with  himself  for  his 
lack  of  success  in  his  researches.  It  was  the  only  debt  left 
him  by  the  colonel,  and  Marius  made  it  a  matter  of  honor  to 
pay  it.  "What,"  he  thought,  "when  my  father  lay  dying  on 
the  field  of  battle,  did  Thenardier  contrive  to  find  him  amid 
the  smoke  and  the  grape-shot,  and  bear  him  off  on  his  shoul- 
ders, and  yet  he  owed  him  nothing,  and  I,  who  owe  so  much  to 
Thenardier,  cannot  join  him  in  this  shadow  where  he  is  lying 
in  the  pangs  of  death,  and  in  my  turn  bring  him  back  from 
death  to  life!  Oh  !  I  will  find  him  !"  To  find  Thenardier,  in 
fact,  Marius  would  have  given  one  of  his  arms,  to  rescue  him 
from  his  misery,  he  would  have  sacrificed  all  his  blood.  To 
see  Thenardier,  to  render  Thenardier  some  service,  to  say  to 
him  :  "You  do  not  know  me ;  well,  I  do  know  you  !  Here  I  am. 
Dispose  of  me!"  This  was  Marius'  sweetest  and  most  mag- 
nificent dream. 


UARIV8 

CHAPTER    III 

MARIUS   GROWN    UP 

AT  this  epoch,  Marius  was  twenty  years  of  age.  It  was 
three  years  since  he  had  left  his  grandfather.  Both  parties 
had  remained  on  the  same  terms,  without  attempting  to  ap- 
proach each  other,  and  without  seeking  to  see  each  other. 
Besides,  what  was  the  use  of  seeing  each  other?  Marius  was 
the  brass  vase,  while  Father  Gillenormand  was  the  iron  pot. 

We  admit  that  Marius  was  mistaken  as  to  his  grandfather's 
heart.  He  had  imagined  that  M.  Gillenormand  had  never 
loved  him,  and  that  that  crusty,  harsh,  and  smiling  old  fellow 
who  cursed,  shouted,  and  stormed  and  brandished  his  cane, 
cherished  for  him,  at  the  most,  only  that  affection,  which  is 
at  once  slight  and  severe,  of  the  dotards  of  comedy.  Marius 
was  in  error.  There  are  fathers  who  do  not  love  their  chil- 
dren; there  exists  no  grandfather  who  does  not  adore  his 
grandson.  At  bottom,  as  we  have  said,  M.  Gillenormand  idol- 
ized Marius.  He  idolized  him  after  his  own  fashion,  with  an 
accompaniment  of  snappishness  and  boxes  on  the  ear;  but,  this 
child  once  gone,  he  felt  a  black  void  in  his  heart ;  he  would 
allow  no  one  to  mention  the  child  to  him,  and  all  the  while 
secretly  regretted  that  he  was  so  well  obeyed.  At  first,  he 
hoped  that  this  Buonapartist,  this  Jacobin,  this  terrorist,  this 
Scptembrist,  would  return.  But  the  weeks  passed  by,  years 
passed ;  to  M.  Gillenormand's  great  despair,  the  "blood- 
drinker"  did  not  make  his  appearance.  "I  could  not  do  other- 
wise than  turn  him  out,"  said  the  grandfather  to  himself,  and 
he  asked  himself:  "If  the  thing  were  to  do  over  again,  would 
I  do  it?"  His  pride  instantly  answered  "yes,"  but  his  aged 
head,  which  he  shook  in  silence,  replied  sadly  "no."  He  had 
his  hours  of  depression.  He  missed  Marius.  Old  men  need 
affection  as  they  need  the  sun.  It  is  warmth.  Strong  as  his 
nature  was,  the  absence  of  Marius  had  wrought  some  change 
in  him.  Nothing  in  the  world  could  have  induced  him  to  take 


THE  EXCELLENCE  OF  MI8FOKTUNE 

a  step  towards  "that  rogue";  but  he  suffered.  He  never  in- 
quired about  him,  but  he  thought  of  him  incessantly.  He  lived 
in  the  Marais  in  a  more  and  more  retired  manner;  he  was  still 
merry  and  violent  as  of  old,  but  his  merriment  had  a  convul- 
sive harshness,  and  his  violences  always  terminated  in  a  sort 
of  gentle  and  gloomy  dejection.  He  sometimes  said :  "Oh !  if 
he  only  would  return,  what  a  good  box  on  the  ear  I  would  give 
him !" 

As  for  his  aunt,  she  thought  too  little  to  love  much ;  Marius 
was  no  longer  for  her  much  more  than  a  vague  black  form; 
and  she  eventually  came  to  occupy  herself  with  him  much  less 
than  with  the  cat  or  the  paroquet  which  she  probably  had. 
What  augmented  Father  Gillenormand's  secret  suffering  was, 
that  he  locked  it  all  up  within  his  breast,  and  did  not  allow  its 
existence  to  be  divined.  His  sorrow  was  like  those  recently 
invented  furnaces  which  consume  their  own  smoke.  It  some- 
times happened  that  officious  busybodies  spoke  to  him  of 
Marius,  and  asked  him:  "What  is  your  grandson  doing?" 
"What  has  become  of  him?"  The  old  bourgeois  replied  with 
a  sigh,  that  he  was  a  sad  case,  and  giving  a  fillip  to  his  cuff, 
if  he  wished  to  appear  gay :  "Monsieur  le  Baron  do  Pontmercy 
is  practising  pettifogging  in  some  corner  or  other." 

While  the  old  man  regretted,  Marius  applauded  himself. 
As  is  the  case  with  all  good-hearted  people,  misfortune  had 
eradicated  his  bitterness.  He  only  thought  of  M.  Gillenor- 
mand  in  an  amiable  light,  but  he  had  set  his  mind  on  not 
receiving  anything  more  from  the  man  who  had  been  unkind 
to  his  father.  This  was  the  mitigated  translation  of  his  first 
indignation.  Moreover,  he  was  happy  at  having  suffered,  and 
at  suffering  still.  It  was  for  his  father's  sake.  The  hardness 
of  his  life  satisfied  and  pleased  him.  He  said  to  himself  with 
a  sort  of  joy  that — it  iras  certainly  the  least  he  could  do;  that 
it  was  an  expiation ; — that,  had  it  not  been  for  that,  he  would 
have  been  punished  in  some  other  way  and  later  on  for  his  im- 
pious indifference  towards  his  father,  and  such  a  father !  that  it 
would  not  have  been  just  that  his  father  should  have  all  the 
suffering,  and  he  none  of  it ;  and  that,  in  any  case,  what  were 


126  MARIU8 

his  toils  and  his  destitution  compared  with  the  colonel's  heroic 
life?  that,  in  short,  the  only  way  for  him  to  approach  his 
father  and  resemble  him.  was  to  be  brave  in  the  face  of  indi- 
gence, as  the  other  had  been  valiant  before  the  enemy;  and 
that  that  was,  no  doubt,  what  the  colonel  had  meant  to  imply 
by  the  words :  "He  will  be  worthy  of  it."  Words  which  Marina 
continued  to  wear,  not  on  his  breast,  since  the  colonel's  writing 
had  disappeared,  but  in  his  heart. 

And  then,  on  the  day  when  his  grandfather  had  turned  him 
out  of  doors,  he  had  been  only  a  child,  now  he  was  a  man. 
He  felt  it.  Misery,  we  repeat,  had  been  good  for  him.  Pov- 
erty in  youth,  when  it  succeeds,  has  this  magnificent  property 
about  it.  that  it  turns  the  whole  will  towards  effort,  and  the 
whole  soul  towards  aspiration.  Poverty  instantly  lays  material 
life  bare  and  renders  it  hideous ;  hence  inexpressible  bounds 
towards  the  ideal  life.  The  wealthy  young  man  has  a  hundred 
coarse  and  brilliant  distractions,  horse  races,  hunting,  dogs, 
tobacco,  gaming,  good  repasts,  and  all  the  rest  of  it ;  occupa- 
tions for  the  baser  side  of  the  soul,  at  the  expense  of  the  loftier 
and  more  delicate  sides.  The  poor  young  man  wins  his  bread 
with  difficulty;  he  eats;  when  he  has  eaten,  he  has  nothing 
more  but  meditation.  He  goes  to  the  spectacles  which  God 
furnishes  gratis ;  he  gazes  at  the  sky,  space,  the  stars,  flowers, 
children,  the  humanity  among  which  he  is  suffering,  the  crea- 
tion amid  which  he  beams.  He  gazes  so  much  on  humanity 
that  he  perceives  its  soul,  he  gazes  upon  creation  to  such  an 
extent  that  he  beholds  God.  He  dreams,  he  feels  himself 
great;  he  dreams  on,  and  feels  himself  tender.  From  the 
egotism  of  the  man  who  suffers  he  passes  to  the  compassion 
of  the  man  who  meditates.  An  admirable  sentiment  breaks 
forth  in  him,  forgetfulness  of  self  and  pity  for  all.  As  lie 
thinks  of  the  innumerable  enjoyments  which  nature  offers, 
gives,  and  lavishes  to  souls  which  stand  open,  and  refuses  to 
souls  that  are  closed,  he  comes  to  pity,  he  the  millionnaire  of 
the  mind,  the  millionnaire  of  money.  All  hatred  departs  from 
his  heart,  in  proportion  as  light  penetrates  his  spirit.  And 
is  he  unhappy?  No.  The  misery  of  a  young  man  is  never 


THE  EXCELLENCE  OF  MISFORTUNE  127 

miserable.  The  first  young  lad  who  comes  to  hand,  however 
poor  he  may  be,  with  his  strength,  his  health,  his  rapid  walk, 
his  brilliant  eyes,  his  warmly  circulating  blood,  his  black  hair, 
his  red  lips,  his  white  teeth,  his  pure  breath,  will  always  arouse 
the  envy  of  an  aged  emperor.  And  then,  every  morning,  he 
sets  himself  afresh  to  the  task  of  earning  his  bread ;  and 
while  his  hands  earn  his  bread,  his  dorsal  column  gains  pride, 
his  brain  gathers  ideas.  His  task  finished,  he  returns  to 
ineffable  ecstasies,  to  contemplation,  to  joys;  he  beholds  his 
feet  set  in  afflictions,  in  obstacles,  on  the  pavement,  in  the 
nettles,  sometimes  in  the  mire;  his  head  in  the  light.  He  is 
firm,  serene,  gentle,  peaceful,  attentive,  serious,  content  with 
little,  kindly ;  and  he  thanks  God  for  having  bestowed  on  him 
those  two  forms  of  riches  which  many  a  rich  man  lacks :  work, 
which  makes  him  free;  and  thought,  which  makes  him 
dignified. 

This  is  what  had  happened  with  Marius.  To  tell  the  truth, 
he  inclined  a  little  too  much  to  the  side  of  contemplation. 
From  the  day  when  he  had  succeeded  in  earning  his  living 
with  some  approach  to  certainty,  he  had  stopped,  thinking  it 
good  to  be  poor,  and  retrenching  time  from  his  work  to  give  to 
thought;  that  is  to  say,  he  sometimes  passed  entire  days  in 
meditation,  absorbed,  engulfed,  like  a  visionary,  in  the  mute 
voluptuousness  of  ecstasy  and  inward  radiance.  He  had  thus 
propounded  the  problem  of  his  life :  to  toil  as  little  as  possible 
at  material  labor,  in  order  to  toil  as  much  as  possible  at  the 
labor  which  is  impalpable;  in  other  words,  to  bestow  a  few 
hours  on  real  life,  and  to  cast  the  rest  to  the  infinite.  As  he 
believed  that  he  lacked  nothing,  he  did  not  perceive  that  con- 
templation, thus  understood,  ends  by  becoming  one  of  the 
forms  of  idleness;  that  he  was  contenting  himself  with  con- 
quering the  first  necessities  of  life,  and  that  he  was  resting 
from  his  labors  too  soon. 

It  was  evident  that,  for  this  energetic  and  enthusiastic 
nature,  this  could  only  be  a  transitory  state,  and  that,  at  the 
first  shock  against  the  inevitable  complications  of  destiny, 
Marius  would  awaken. 


128  MARW8 

In  the  meantime,  although  he  was  a  lawyer,  and  whatever 
Father  Gillenormand  thought  about  the  matter,  he  was  not 
practising,  he  was  not  even  pettifogging.  Meditation  had 
turned  him  aside  from  pleading.  To  haunt  attorneys,  to 
follow  the  court,  to  hunt  up  cases — what  a  bore !  Why  should 
he  do  it?  He  saw  no  reason  for  changing  the  manner  of 
gaining  his  livelihood !  The  obscure  and  ill-paid  publishing 
establishment  had  come  to  mean  for  him  a  sure  source  of 
work  which  did  not  involve  too  much  labor,  as  we  have  ex- 
plained, and  which  sufficed  for  his  wants. 

One  of  the  publishers  for  whom  he  worked,  M.  Magimel,  I 
think,  offered  to  take  him  into  his  own  house,  to  lodge  him 
well,  to  furnish  him  with  regular  occupation,  and  to  give  him 
fifteen  hundred  francs  a  year.  To  be  well  lodged !  Fifteen 
hundred  francs !  No  doubt.  But  renounce  his  liberty !  Be 
on  fixed  wages !  A  sort  of  hired  man  of  letters !  According 
to  Marius'  opinion,  if  he  accepted,  his  position  would  become 
both  better  and  worse  at  the  same  time,  he  acquired  comfort, 
and  lost  his  dignity;  it  was  a  fine  and  complete  unhappiness 
converted  into  a  repulsive  and  ridiculous  state  of  torture: 
something  like  the  case  of  a  blind  man  who  should  recover  the 
sight  of  one  eye.  He  refused. 

Marius  dwelt  in  solitude.  Owing  to  his  taste  for  remaining 
outside  of  everything,  and  through  having  been  too  much 
alarmed,  he  had  not  entered  decidedly  into  the  group  presided 
over  by  Enjolras.  They  had  remained  good  friends ;  they  were 
ready  to  assist  each  other  on  occasion  in  every  possible  way ; 
but  nothing  more.  Marius  had  two  friends:  one  young.  Cour- 
feyrac;  and  one  old,  M.  Mabeuf.  He  inclined  more  to  the  old 
man.  In  the  first  place,  he  owed  to  him  the  revolution  which 
had  taken  place  within  him ;  to  him  he  was  indebted  for 
having  known  and  loved  his  father.  "He  operated  on  me  for 
a  cataract,"  he  said. 

Thf  churchwarden  had  certainly  played  a  decisive  part. 

It  wa?  not,  however,  that  M.  Mabeuf  had  been  anything  but 
the  calm  and  impassive  agent  of  Providence  in  this  connec- 
tion. He  had  enlightened  Marius  by  chance  and  without 


THE  EXCELLENCE  OF  MISFORTUNE 

being  aware  of  the  fact,  as  does  a  candle  which  some  one 
brings;  he  had  been  the  candle  and  not  the  some  one. 

As  for  Marius'  inward  political  revolution,  M.  Mabeuf  was 
totally  incapable  of  comprehending  it,  of  willing  or  of  direct- 
ing it. 

As  we  shall  see  M.  Mabeuf  again,  later  on,  a  few  words  will 
not  be  superfluous. 


CHAPTER   IV 

M.   MABEUF 

ON  the  day  when  M.  Mabeuf  said  to  Marius :  "Certainly  I 
approve  of  political  opinions,"  he  expressed  the  real  state  of 
his  mind.  All  political  opinions  were  matters  of  indifference 
to  him,  and  he  approved  them  all,  without  distinction,  pro- 
vided they  left  him  in  peace,  as  the  Greeks  called  the  Furies 
"the  beautiful,  the  good,  the  charming,"  the  Eumenides.  M. 
Mabeuf's  political  opinion  consisted  in  a  passionate  love  for 
plants,  and,  above  all,  for  books.  Like  all  the  rest  of  the 
world,  he  possessed  the  termination  in  ist,  without  which  no 
one  could  exist  at  that  time,  but  he  was  neither  a  Royalist,  a 
Bonapartist,  a  Chartist,  an  Orleanist,  nor  an  Anarchist ;  he 
was  a  bouquinist,  a  collector  of  old  books.  He  did  not  under- 
stand how  men  could  busy  themselves  with  hating  each  other 
because  of  silly  stuff  like  the  charter,  democracy,  legitimacy, 
monarchy,  the  republic,  etc.,  when  there  were  in  the  world  all 
sorts  of  mosses,  grasses,  and  shrubs  which  they  might  be  look- 
ing at.  and  heaps  of  folios,  and  even  of  32mos,  which  they 
might  turn  over.  lie  took  good  care  not  to  become  useless; 
having  books  did  not  prevent  his  reading,  being  a  botanist  did 
not  prevent  his  being  a  gardener.  When  he  made  Pontmercy's 
acquaintance,  this  sympathy  had  existed  between  the  colonel 
and  himself — that  what  the  colonel  did  for  (lowers,  he  did 
for  fruits.  M.  Mabeuf  had  succeeded  in  producing  seedling 
pears  as  savory  as  the  pears  of  St.  Germain;  it  is  from  one 


130  MARIU8 

of  his  combinations,  apparently,  that  the  October  Mirabelle, 
now  celebrated  and  no  less  perfumed  than  the  summer  Mira- 
belle, owes  its  origin.  lie  went  to  mass  rather  from  gentle- 
ness than  from  piety,  and  because,  as  he  loved  the  faces  of 
men,  but  hated  their  noise,  he  found  them  assembled  and 
silent  only  in  church.  Feeling  that  he  must  be  something  in 
the  State,  he  had  chosen  the  career  of  warden.  However,  he 
had  never  succeeded  in  loving  any  woman  as  much  as  a  tulip 
bulb,  nor  any  man  as  much  as  an  Elzevir.  He  had  long  passed 
sixty,  when,  one  day,  some  one  asked  him:  "Have  you  never 
been  married?"  "I  have  forgotten,"  said  he.  When  it  some- 
times happened  to  him — and  to  whom  does  it  not  happon  ? — 
to  say :  "Oh !  if  I  were  only  rich !"  it  was  not  when  ogling  a 
pretty  girl,  as  was  the  case  with  Father  Gillenormand,  but 
when  contemplating  an  old  book.  He  lived  alone  with  an  old 
housekeeper.  He  was  somewhat  gouty,  and  when  he  was 
asleep,  his  aged  fingers,  stiffened  with  rheumatism,  lay  crooked 
up  in  the  folds  of  his  sheets.  He  had  composed  and  published 
a  Flora  of  the  Environs  of  Cauteretz,  with  colored  plates,  a 
work  which  enjoyed  a  tolerable  measure  of  esteem  and  which 
sold  well.  People  rang  his  bell,  in  the  Rue  Mesieres,  two  or 
three  times  a  day,  to  ask  for  it.  He  drew  as  much  as  two 
thousand  francs  a  year  from  it;  this  constituted  nearly  the 
whole  of  his  fortune.  Although  poor,  he  had  had  the  talent 
to  form  for  himself,  by  dint  of  patience,  privations,  and  time, 
a  precious  collection  of  rare  copies  of  every  sort.  He  never 
went  out  without  a  book  under  his  arm,  and  he  often  returned 
with  two.  The  sole  decoration  of  the  four  rooms  on  the 
ground  floor,  which  composed  his  lodgings,  consisted  of 
framed  herbariums,  and  engravings  of  the  old  masters.  The 
sight  of  a  sword  or  a  gun  chilled  his  blood.  He  had  never 
approached  a  cannon  in  his  life,  even  at  the  Invalides.  He 
had  a  passable  stomach,  a  brother  who  was  a  cure,  perfectly 
white  hair,  no  teeth,  either  in  his  mouth  or  his  mind,  a 
trembling  in  every  limb,  a  Picard  accent,  an  infantile  laugh, 
the  air  of  an  old  sheep,  and  he  was  easily  frightened.  Add  to 
this,  that  he  had  no  other  friendship,  no  other  acquaintance 


THE  EXCELLENCE  OF  MISFORTUNE 

among  the  living,  than  an  old  bookseller  of  the  Porte-Saint- 
Jacques,  named  Royal.  His  dream  was  to  naturalize  indigo 
in  France. 

His  servant  was  also  a  sort  of  innocent.  The  poor  good  old 
woman  was  a  spinster.  Sultan,  her  cat,  which  might  have 
mewed  Allegri's  miserere  in  the  Sixtine  Chapel,  had  filled  her 
heart  and  sufficed  for  the  quantity  of  passion  which  existed  in 
her.  None  of  her  dreams  had  ever  proceeded  as  far  as  man. 
She  had  never  been  able  to  get  further  than  her  cat.  Like 
him,  she  had  a  mustache.  Her  glory  consisted  in  her  caps, 
which  were  always  white.  She  passed  her  time,  on  Sundays, 
after  mass,  in  counting  over  the  linen  in  her  chest,  and  in 
spreading  out  on  her  bed  the  dresses  in  the  piece  which  she 
bought  and  never  had  made  up.  She  knew  how  to  read.  M. 
Mabeuf  had  nicknamed  her  Mother  Plutarque. 

M.  Mabeuf  had  taken  a  fancy  to  Marius,  because  Marius, 
being  young  and  gentle,  warmed  his  age  without  startling  his 
timidity.  Youth  combined  with  gentleness  produces  on  old 
people  the  effect  of  the  sun  without  wind.  When  Marius  was 
saturated  with  military  glory,  with  gunpowder,  with  marches 
and  countermarches,  and  with  all  those  prodigious  battles  in 
which  his  father  had  given  and  received  such  tremendous 
blows  of  the  sword,  he  went  to  see  M.  Mabeuf,  and  M. 
Mabeuf  talked  to  him  of  his  hero  from  the  point  of  view  of 
flowers. 

His  brother  the  cure  died  about  1830,  and  almost  immedi- 
ately, as  when  the  night  is  drawing  on,  the  whole  horizon  grew 
dark  for  M.  Mabeuf.  A  notary's  failure  deprived  him  of  the 
sum  of  ten  thousand  francs,  which  was  all  that  he  possessed 
in  his  brother's  right  and  his  own.  The  Revolution  of  July 
brought  a  crisis  to  publishing.  In  a  period  of  embarrassment, 
the  first  thing  which  does  not  sell  is  a  Flora.  The  Flora  of  the 
Environs  of  Cauteretz  stopped  short.  Weeks  passed  by  with- 
out a  single  purchaser.  Sometimes  M.  Mabeuf  started  at  the 
sound  of  the  bell.  "Monsieur,"  said  Mother  Plutarque  sadly, 
"it  is  the  water-carrier."  In  short,  one  day,  M.  Mabeuf 
quitted  the  Rue  Mesieres,  abdicated  the  functions  of  warden, 


132  MARID8 

gave  up  Saint-Sulpice,  sold  not  a  part  of  his  books,  but  of 
his  prints. — that  to  which  he  was  the  least  attached, — and 
installed  himself  in  a  little  house  on  the  Rue  Montparnasse, 
where,  however,  he  remained  but  one  quarter  for  two  reasons: 
in  the  first  place,  the  ground  floor  and  the  garden  cost  three 
hundred  francs,  and  he  dared  not  spend  more  than  two  hun- 
dred francs  on  his  rent ;  in  the  second,  being  near  Fatou's 
shooting-gallery,  he  could  hear  the  pistol-shots;  which  was 
intolerable  to  him. 

He  carried  off  his  Flora,  his  copper-plates,  his  herbariums, 
his  portfolios,  and  his  books,  and  established  himself  near  the 
Salpetriere,  in  a  sort  of  thatched  cottage  of  the  village  of  Aus- 
terlitz,  where,  for  fifty  crowns  a  year,  he  got  three  rooms  and  a 
garden  enclosed  by  a  hedge,  and  containing  a  well.  He  took 
advantage  of  this  removal  to  sell  off  nearly  all  his  furniture. 
On  the  day  of  his  entrance  into  his  new  quarters,  he  was  very 
gay,  and  drove  the  nails  on  which  his  engravings  and  herbari- 
ums were  to  hang,  with  his  own  hands,  dug  in  his  garden  the 
rest  of  the  day,  and  at  night,  perceiving  that  Mother  Plutarque 
had  a  melancholy  air,  and  was  very  thoughtful,  he  tapped  her 
on  the  shoulder  and  said  to  her  with  a  smile:  "We  have  the 
indigo !" 

Only  two  visitors,  the  bookseller  of  the  Porte-Saint-Jacques 
and  Marius,  were  admitted  to  view  the  thatched  cottage  at 
Austerlitz,  a  brawling  name  which  was,  to  tell  the  truth,  ex- 
tremely disagreeable  to  him. 

However,  as  we  have  just  pointed  out,  brains  which  are  ab- 
sorbed in  some  bit  of  wisdom,  or  folly,  or,  as  it  often  happens, 
in  both  at  once,  are  but  slowly  accessible  to  the  things  of  actual 
life.  Their  own  destiny  is  a  far-off  thing  to  them.  There 
results  from  such  concentration  a  passivity,  which,  if  it  were 
the  outcome  of  reasoning,  would  resemble  philosophy.  One 
declines,  descends,  trickles  away,  even  crumbles  away,  and  yet 
is  hardly  conscious  of  it  one's  self.  It  always  ends,  it  is  true, 
in  an  awakening,  but  the  awakening  is  tardy.  In  the  mean- 
time, it  seems  as  though  we  held  ourselves  neutral  in  the  game 
which  is  going  on  between  our  happiness  and  our  unhappiness. 


THE  EXCELLENCE  OF  MISFORTUNE  133 

"We  are  the  stake,  and  we  look  on  at  the  game  with  indiffer- 
ence. 

It  is  thus  that,  athwart  the  cloud  which  formed  about  him, 
when  all  his  hopes  were  extinguished  one  after  the  other,  M. 
Mabeuf  remained  rather  puerilely,  but  profoundly  serene. 
His  habits  of  mind  had  the  regular  swing  of  a  pendulum. 
Once  mounted  on  an  illusion,  he  went  for  a  very  long  time, 
even  after  the  illusion  had  disappeared.  A  clock  does  not  stop 
short  at  the  precise  moment  when  the  key  is  lost. 

M.  Mabeuf  had  his  innocent  pleasures.  These  pleasures 
were  inexpensive  and  unexpected ;  the  merest  chance  furnished 
them.  One  day,  Mother  Plutarque  was  reading  a  romance  in 
one  corner  of  the  room.  She  was  reading  aloud,  finding  that 
she  understood  better  thus.  To  read  aloud  is  to  assure  one's 
self  of  what  one  is  reading.  There  are  people  who  read  very 
loud,  and  who  have  the  appearance  of  giving  themselves  their 
word  of  honor  as  to  what  they  are  perusing. 

It  was  with  this  sort  of  energy  that  Mother  Plutarque  was 
reading  the  romance  which  she  had  in  hand.  M.  Mabeuf 
heard  her  without  listening  to  her. 

In  the  course  of  her  reading,  Mother  Plutarque  came  to  this 
phrase.  It  was  a  question  of  an  officer  of  dragoons  and  a 
beauty : — 

" — The  beauty  pouted,  and  the  dragoon — 

Here  she  interrupted  herself  to  wipe  her  glasses. 

"Bouddha  and  the  Dragon,"  struck  in  M.  Mabeuf  in  a  low 
voice.  "Yes,  it  is  true  that  there  was  a  dragon,  which,  from 
the  depths  of  its  cave,  spouted  flame  through  his  maw  and  set 
the  heavens  on  fire.  Many  stars  had  already  been  consumed 
by  this  monster,  which,  besides,  had  the  claws  of  a  tiger. 
Bouddha  went  into  its  den  and  succeeded  in  converting  the 
dragon.  That  is  a  good  book  that  you  are  reading,  Mother 
Plutarque.  There  is  no  more  beautiful  legend  in  exist- 
ence." 

And  M.  Mabeuf  fell  into  a  delicious  revery. 


134  MARIU8 

CHAPTER   V 

POVERTY   A   GOOD    NEIGHBOR   FOR   MISERY 

MARIUS  liked  this  candid  old  man  who  saw  himself  gradu- 
ally falling  into  the  clutches  of  indigence,  and  who  came  to 
feel  astonishment,  little  by  little,  without,  however,  being 
made  melancholy  by  it.  Marius  met  Courfeyrac  and  sought 
out  M.  Mabeuf.  Very  rarely,  however;  twice  a  month  at 
most. 

Marius'  pleasure  consisted  in  taking  long  walks  alone  on  the 
outer  boulevards,  or  in  the  Champs-de-Mars,  or  in  the  least 
frequented  alleys  of  the  Luxembourg.  He  often  spent  half  a 
day  in  gazing  at  a  market  garden,  the  beds  of  lettuce,  the 
chickens  on  the  dung-heap,  the  horse  turning  the  water-wheel. 
The  passers-by  stared  at  him  in  surprise,  and  some  of  them 
thought  his  attire  suspicious  and  his  mien  sinister.  He 
was  only  a  poor  young  man  dreaming  in  an  objectless 
way. 

It  was  during  one  of  his  strolls  that  he  had  hit  upon  the 
Gorbeau  house,  and,  tempted  by  its  isolation  and  its  cheapness, 
had  taken  up  his  abode  there.  He  was  known  there  only  under 
the  name  of  M.  Marius. 

Some  of  his  father's  old  generals  or  old  comrades  had  in- 
vited him  to  go  and  see  them,  when  they  learned  about 
him.  Marius  had  not  refused  their  invitations.  They  af- 
forded opportunities  of  talking  about  his  father.  Thus  he 
went  from  time  to  time,  to  Comte  Pajol,  to  General  Bella- 
vesne,  to  General  Fririon,  to  the  Invalides.  There  was  music 
and  dancing  there.  On  such  evenings,  Marius  put  on  his 
new  coat.  But  he  never  went  to  these  evening  parties  or  balls 
except  on  days  when  it  was  freezing  cold,  because  he  could  not 
afford  a  carriage,  and  he  did  not  wish  to  arrive  with  boots 
otherwise  than  like  mirrors. 

He  said  sometimes,  but  without  bitterness:  "Men  are  so 
made  that  in  a  drawing-room  you  may  be  soiled  everywhere 


THE  EXCELLENCE  OF  MISFORTUNE  135 

except  on  your  shoes.  In  order  to  insure  a  good  reception 
there,  only  one  irreproachable  thing  is  asked  of  you;  your 
conscience?  No,  your  boots." 

All  passions  except  those  of  the  heart  are  dissipated  by 
revery.  Marius'  political  fevers  vanished  thus.  The  Revolu- 
tion of  1830  assisted  in  the  process,  by  satisfying  and  calming 
him.  He  remained  the  same,  setting  aside  his  fits  of  wrath. 
He  still  held  the  same  opinions.  Only,  they  had  been  tem- 
pered. To  speak  accurately,  he  had  no  longer  any  opinions,  he 
had  sympathies.  To  what  party  did  he  belong?  To  the  party 
of  humanity.  Out  of  humanity  he  chose  France;  out  of  the 
Nation  he  chose  the  people;  out  of  the  people  he  chose  the 
woman.  It  was  to  that  point  above  all,  that  his  pity  was  di- 
rected. Now  he  preferred  an  idea  to  a  deed,  a  poet  to  a  hero, 
and  he  admired  a  book  like  Job  more  than  an  event  like 
Marengo.  And  then,  when,  after  a  day  spent  in  meditation,  he 
returned  in  the  evening  through  the  boulevards,  and  caught 
a  glimpse  through  the  branches  of  the  trees  of  the  fathomless 
space  beyond,  the  nameless  gleams,  the  abyss,  the  shadow,  the 
mystery,  all  that  which  is  only  human  seemed  very  pretty  in- 
deed to  him. 

He  thought  that  he  had,  and  he  really  had,  in  fact,  arrived 
at  the  truth  of  life  and  of  human  philosophy,  and  he  had  ended 
by  gazing  at  nothing  but  heaven,  the  only  thing  which  Truth 
can  perceive  from  the  bottom  of  her  well. 

This  did  not  prevent  him  from  multiplying  his  plans,  his 
combinations,  his  scaffoldings,  his  projects  for  the  future.  In 
this  state  of  revery,  an  eye  which  could  have  cast  a  glance  into 
Marius'  interior  would  have  been  dazzled  with  the  purity  of 
that  soul.  In  fact,  had  it  been  given  to  our  eyes  of  the  flesh 
to  gaze  into  the  consciences  of  others,  we  should  be  able  to 
judge  a  man  much  more  surely  according  to  what  he  dreams, 
than  according  to  what  he  thinks.  There  is  will  in  thought, 
there  is  none  in  dreams.  Revery,  which  is  utterly  spontaneous, 
takes  and  keeps,  even  in  the  gigantic  and  the  ideal,  the  form 
of  our  spirit.  Nothing  proceeds  more  directly  and  more  sin- 
cerely from  the  very  depth  of  our  soul,  than  our  unpremedi- 


136  MARIU8 

tated  and  boundless  aspirations  towards  the  splendors  of  des- 
tiny. In  these  aspirations,  much  more  than  in  deliberate, 
rational  co-ordinated  ideas,  is  the  real  character  of  a  man  to  be 
found.  Our  chimeras  are  the  things  which  the  most  resemble 
us.  Each  one  of  us  dreams  of  the  unknown  and  the  impossible 
in  accordance  with  his  nature. 

Towards  the  middle  of  this  year  1831,  the  old  woman  who 
waited  on  Marius  told  him  that  his  neighbors,  the  wretched 
Jondrette  family,  had  been  turned  out  of  doors.  Marius,  who 
passed  nearly  the  whole  of  his  days  out  of  the  house,  hardly 
knew  that  he  had  any  neighbors. 

"Why  are  they  turned  out?"  he  asked. 

"Because  they  do  not  pay  their  rent ;  they  owe  for  two  quar- 
ters." 

"How  much  is  it?" 

"Twenty  francs,"  said  the  old  woman. 

Marius  had  thirty  francs  saved  up  in  a  drawer. 

"Here,"  he  said  to  the  old  woman,  "take  these  twenty-five 
francs.  Pay  for  the  poor  people  and  give  them  five  francs,  and 
do  not  tell  them  that  it  was  I." 


CHAPTER   VI 

THE   SUBSTITUTE 

IT  chanced  that  the  regiment  to  which  Lieutenant  Theodule 
belonged  came  to  perform  garrison  duty  in  Paris.  This  in- 
spired Aunt  Gillenormand  with  a  second  idea.  She  had,  on 
the  first  occasion,  hit  upon  the  plan  of  having  Marius  spied 
upon  by  Theodule;  now  she  plotted  to  have  Theodule  take 
Marius'  place. 

At  all  events  and  in  case  the  grandfather  should  feel  the 
vague  need  of  a  young  face  in  the  house, — these  rays  of  dawn 
are  sometimes  sweet  to  ruin, — it  was  expedient  to  find  another 
Marius.  "Take  it  as  a  simple  erratum,"  she  thought,  "such  as 
one  sees  in  books.  For  Marius,  read  Theodule." 


THE  EXCELLENCE  OF  MISFORTUNE  137 

A  grandnephew  is  almost  the  same  as  a  grandson  ;  in  default 
•jf  a  lawyer  one  takes  a  lancer. 

One  morning,  when  M.  Gillenormand  was  ahout  to  read 
something  in  the  Quotidienne,  his  daughter  entered  and  said  to 
him  in  her  sweetest  voice;  for  the  question  concerned  her 
favorite : — 

"Father,  Theodule  is  coming  to  present  his  respects  to  you 
this  morning." 

"Who's  Theodule?" 

"Your  grandnephew." 

"Ah  !"  said  the  grandfather. 

Then  he  went  back  to  his  reading,  thought  no  more  of  his 
grandnephew,  who  was  merely  some  Theodule  or  other,  and 
soon  flew  into  a  rage,  which  almost  always  happened  when  he 
read.  The  "sheet"  which  he  held,  although  Royalist,  of 
course,  announced  for  the  following  day,  without  any  soften- 
ing phrases,  one  of  these  little  events  which  were  of  daily 
occurrence  at  that  date  in  Paris :  "That  the  students  of  the 
schools  of  law  and  medicine  were  to  assemble  on  the  Place  du 
Pantheon,  at  midday, — to  deliberate."  The  discussion  con- 
cerned one  of  the  questions  of  the  moment,  the  artillery  of  the 
National  Guard,  and  a  conflict  between  the  Minister  of  War 
and  "the  citizen's  militia,"  on  the  subject  of  the  cannon  parked 
in  the  courtyard  of  the  Louvre.  The  students  were  to  "delib- 
erate" over  this.  It  did  not  take  much  more  than  this  to 
swell  M.  Gillenormand's  rage. 

He  thought  of  Marius,  who  was  a  student,  and  who  would 
probably  go  with  the  rest,  to  "deliberate,  at  midday,  on  the 
Place  du  Pantheon." 

As  he  was  indulging  in  this  painful  dream,  Lieutenant 
Theodule  entered  clad  in  plain  clothes  as  a  bourgeois,  which 
was  clever  of  him,  and  was  discreetly  introduced  by  Mademoi- 
selle Gillenormand.  The  lancer  had  reasoned  as  follows: 
"The  old  druid  has  not  sunk  all  his  money  in  a  life  pension. 
It  is  well  to  disguise  one's  self  as  a  civilian  from  time  to  time." 

Mademoiselle  Gillenormand  said  aloud  to  her  father: — 

"Theodule,  your  grandnephew." 


138  MARIU8 

And  in  a  low  voice  to  the  lieutenant: — 

"Approve  of  everything." 

And  she  withdrew. 

The  lieutenant,  who  was  but  little  accustomed  to  such  ven- 
erable encounters,  stammered  with  some  timidity :  "Good  day, 
uncle," — and  made  a  salute  composed  of  the  involuntary  and 
mechanical  outline  of  the  military  salute  finished  off  as  a 
bourgeois  salute. 

"Ah !  so  it's  you ;  that  is  well,  sit  down,"  said  the  old  gen- 
tleman. 

That  said,  he  totally  forgot  the  lancer. 

Theodule  seated  himself,  and  M.  Gillenormand  rose. 

M.  Gillenormand  began  to  pace  back  and  forth,  his  hands  in 
his  pockets,  talking  aloud,  and  twitching,  with  his  irritated  old 
fingers,  at  the  two  watches  which  he  wore  in  his  two  fobs. 

"That  pack  of  brats !  they  convene  on  the  Place  du  Pan- 
theon !  by  my  life !  urchins  who  were  with  their  nurses  but 
yesterday !  If  one  were  to  squeeze  their  noses,  milk  would 
burst  out.  And  they  deliberate  to-morrow,  at  midday.  What 
are  we  coming  to?  What  are  we  coming  to?  It  is  clear  that 
we  are  making  for  the  abyss.  That  is  what  the  descamisados 
have  brought  us  to !  To  deliberate  on  the  citizen  artillery ! 
To  go  and  jabber  in  the  open  air  over  the  jibes  of  the  National 
Guard!  And  with  whom  are  they  to  meet  there?  Just  see 
whither  Jacobinism  leads.  I  will  bet  anything  you  like,  a 
million  against  a  counter,  that  there  will  be  no  one  there  but 
returned  convicts  and  released  galley-slaves.  The  Republicans 
and  the  galley-slaves, — they  form  but  one  nose  and  one  hand- 
kerchief. Carnot  used  to  say:  'Where  would  you  have  me  go, 
traitor?'  Fouche  replied:  'Wherever  you  please,  imbecile!' 
That's  what  the  Republicans  are  like." 

"That  is  true,"  said  Theodule. 

M.  Gillenormand  half  turned  his  head,  saw  Theodule,  and 
went  on : — 

"When  one  reflects  that  that  scoundrel  was  so  vile  as  to  turn 
carbonaro !  Why  did  you  leave  my  house?  To  go  and  become 
a  Republican  !  Pssst !  In  the  first  place,  the  people  want  none 


THE  EXCELLENCE  OF  MISFORTUNE 

of  your  republic,  they  have  common  sense,  they  know  well  that 
there  always  have  been  kings,  and  that  there  always  will  be; 
they  know  well  that  the  people  are  only  the  people,  after  all, 
they  make  sport  of  it,  of  your  republic — do  you  understand, 
idiot?  Is  it  not  a  horrible  caprice?  To  fall  in  love  with  Fere 
Duchesne,  to  make  sheep's-eyes  at  the  guillotine,  to  sing  ro- 
mances, and  play  on  the  guitar  under  the  balcony  of  '93 — it's 
enough  to  make  one  spit  on  all  these  young  fellows,  such  fools 
are  they !  They  are  all  alike.  Not  one  escapes.  It  suffices  for 
them  to  breathe  the  air  which  blows  through  the  street  to  lose 
their  senses.  The  nineteenth  century  is  poison.  The  first 
scamp  that  happens  along  lets  his  beard  grow  like  a  goat's, 
thinks  himself  a  real  scoundrel,  and  abandons  his  old  relatives. 
He's  a  Republican,  he's  a  romantic.  What  does  that  mean,  ro- 
mantic? Do  me  the  favor  to  tell  me  what  it  is.  All  possible 
follies.  A  year  ago,  they  ran  to  Hernani.  Now,  I  just  ask  you, 
Hcrnani!  antitheses!  abominations  which  are  not  even  written 
in  French !  And  then,  they  have  cannons  in  the  courtyard  of 
the  Louvre.  Such  are  the  rascalities  of  this  age !" 

"You  are  right,  uncle,"  said  Theodule. 

M.  Gillenormand  resumed  : — 

"Cannons  in  the  courtyard  of  the  Museum !  For  what  pur- 
pose ?  Do  you  want  to  fire  grape-shot  at  the  Apollo  Belvedere  ? 
What  have  those  cartridges  to  do  with  the  Venus  de  Medici? 
Oh !  the  young  men  of  the  present  day  are  all  blackguards ! 
What  a  pretty  creature  is  their  Benjamin  Constant!  And 
those  who  are  not  rascals  are  simpletons !  They  do  all  they 
can  to  make  themselves  ugly,  they  are  badly  dressed,  they  are 
afraid  of  women,  in  the  presence  of  petticoats  they  have  a  men- 
dicant air  which  sets  the  girls  into  fits  of  laughter ;  on  my  word 
of  honor,  one  would  say  the  poor  creatures  were  ashamed  of 
love.  They  are  deformed,  and  they  complete  themselves  by 
being  stupid;  they  repeat  the  puns  of  Tiercelin  and  Potier, 
they  have  sack  coats,  stablemen's  waistcoats,  shirts  of  coarse 
linen,  trousers  of  coarse  cloth,  boots  of  coarse  leather,  and 
their  rigmarole  resembles  their  plumage.  One  might  make  use 
of  their  jargon  to  put  new  soles  on  their  old  shoes.  And  all 


140  MARIU8 

this  awkward  batch  of  brats  has  political  opinions,  if  you 
please.  Political  opinions  should  be  strictly  forbidden.  They 
fabricate  systems,  they  recast  society,  they  demolish  the  mon- 
archy, they  fling  all  laws  to  the  earth,  they  put  the  attic  in  the 
cellar's  place  and  my  porter  in  the  place  of  the  King,  they  turn 
Europe  topsy-turvy,  they  reconstruct  the  world,  and  all  their 
love  affairs  consist  in  staring  slily  at  the  ankles  of  the  laun- 
dresses as  these  women  climb  into  their  carts.  Ah !  Marius ! 
Ah  !  you  blackguard  !  to  go  and  vociferate  on  the  public  place  ! 
to  discuss,  to  debate,  to  take  measures !  They  call  that  meas- 
ures, just  God  !  Disorder  humbles  itself  and  becomes  silly.  I 
have  seen  chaos,  I  now  see  a  mess.  Students  deliberating  on 
the  National  Guard, — such  a  thing  could  not  be  seen  among 
the  Ogibewas  nor  the  Cadodaches!  Savages  who  go  naked, 
with  their  noddles  dressed  like  a  shuttlecock,  with  a  club  in 
their  paws,  are  less  of  brutes  than  those  bachelors  of  arts !  The 
four-penny  monkeys!  And  they  set  up  for  judges!  Those 
creatures  deliberate  and  ratiocinate !  The  end  of  the  world  is 
come !  This  is  plainly  the  end  of  this  miserable  terraqueous 
globe !  A  final  hiccough  was  required,  and  France  has  emitted 
it.  Deliberate,  my  rascals !  Such  things  will  happen  so  long 
as  they  go  and  read  the  newspapers  under  the  arcades  of  the 
Odeon.  That  costs  them  a  sou,  and  their  good  sense,  and  their 
intelligence,  and  their  heart  and  their  soul,  and  their  wits. 
They  emerge  thence,  and  decamp  from  their  families.  All 
newspapers  are  pests;  all,  even  the  Drapeau  Blanc!  At  bot- 
tom, Martainville  was  a  Jacobin.  Ah  !  just  Heaven  !  you  may 
boast  of  having  driven  your  grandfather  to  despair,  that  you 
may !" 

"That  is  evident,"  said  Theodule. 

And  profiting  by  the  fact  that  M.  Gillenormand  was  taking 
breath,  the  lancer  added  in  a  magisterial  manner: — 

"There  should  be  no  other  newspaper  than  the  Moniteur, 
and  no  other  book  than  the  Annnaire  Militairc." 

M.  Gillenormand  continued  : — 

"It  is  like  their  Sieyes!  A  regicide  ending  in  a  senator;  for 
that  is  the  way  they  always  end.  They  give  themselves  a  scar 


THE  EXCELLENCE  OF  MISFORTUNE 

with  the  address  of  tliou  as  citizens,  in  order  to  get  themselves 
called,  eventually,  Monsieur  le  Comtc.  Monsieur  le  Comte  as 
big  as  my  arm,  assassins  of  September.  The  philosopher 
Sieyes !  I  will  do  myself  the  justice  to  say,  that  I  have  never 
had  any  better  opinion  of  the  philosophies  of  all  those  philoso- 
phers, than  of  the  spectacles  of  the  grirnacer  of  Tivoli !  One 
day  I  saw  the  Senators  cross  the  Quai  Malplaquet  in  mantles 
of  violet  velvet  sown  with  bees,  with  hats  a  la  Henri  IV.  They 
were  hideous.  One  would  have  pronounced  them  monkeys 
from  the  tiger's  court.  Citizens,  I  declare  to  you,  that  your 
progress  is  madness,  that  your  humanity  is  a  dream,  that  your 
revolution  is  a  crime,  that  your  republic  is  a  monster,  that  your 
young  and  virgin  France  comes  from  the  brothel,  and  I  main- 
tain it  against  all,  whoever  you  may  be,  whether  journalists, 
economists,  legists,  or  even  were  you  better  judges  of  liberty,  of 
equality,  and  fraternity  than  the  knife  of  the  guillotine !  And 
that  I  announce  to  you,  my  fine  fellows !" 

"Parblcu  !"  cried  the  lieutenant,  "that  is  wonderfully  true." 
M.  Gillenormand  paused  in  a  gesture  which  he  had  begun, 
wheeled  round,  stared  Lancer  Theodule  intently  in  the  eyes, 
and  said  to  him : — 
"You  are  a  fool." 


BOOK  SIXTH.— THE  CONJUNCTION  OF  TWO 
STARS 

CHAPTER    I 

THE  SOBRIQUET  :  MODE  OF  FORMATION  OF  FAMILY  NAMES 

MARIOS  was,  at  this  epoch,  a  handsome  young  man,  of 
medium  stature,  with  thick  and  intensely  black  hair,  a  lofty 
and  intelligent  brow,  well-opened  and  passionate  nostrils,  an 
air  of  calmness  and  sincerity,  and  with  something  indescrib- 
ably proud,  thoughtful,  and  innocent  over  his  whole  counte- 
nance. His  profile,  all  of  whose  lines  were  rounded,  without 
thereby  losing  their  firmness,  had  a  certain  Germanic  sweet- 
ness, which  has  made  its  way  into  the  French  physiognomy 
by  way  of  Alsace  and  Lorraine,  and  that  complete  absence  of 
angles  which  rendered  the  Sicambres  so  easily  recognizable 
among  the  Eomans,  and  which  distinguishes  the  leonine  from 
the  aquiline  race.  He  was  at  that  period  of  life  when  the  mind 
of  men  who  think  is  composed,  in  nearly  equal  parts,  of  depth 
and  ingenuousness.  A  grave  situation  being  given,  he  had 
all  that  is  required  to  be  stupid :  one  more  turn  of  the  key, 
and  he  might  be  sublime.  His  manners  were  reserved,  cold, 
polished,  not  very  genial.  As  his  mouth  was  charming,  his 
lips  the  reddest,  and  his  teeth  the  whitest  in  the  world,  his 
smile  corrected  the  severity  of  his  face,  as  a  whole.  At  certain 
moments,  that  pure  brow  and  that  voluptuous  smile  presented 
a  singular  contrast.  His  eyes  were  small,  but  his  glance  was 
large. 

At  the  period  of  his  most  abject  misery,  he  had  observed 
that  young  girls  turned  round  when  he  passed  by,  and  he  fled 
or  hid,  with  death  in  his  soul.  He  thought  that  they  were 


THE  CONJUNCTION  OF  TWO  HTARB  143 

staring  at  him  because  of  his  old  clothes,  and  that  they  were 
laughing  at  them ;  the  fact  is,  that  they  stared  at  him  because 
of  his  grace,  and  that  they  dreamed  of  him. 

This  mute  misunderstanding  between  him  and  the  pretty 
passers-by  had  made  him  shy.  He  chose  none  of  them  for 
the  excellent  reason  that  he  fled  from  all  of  them.  He  lived 
thus  indefinitely, — stupidly,  as  Courfeyrac  said. 

Courfeyrac  also  said  to  him :  "Do  not  aspire  to  be  vener- 
able" [they  called  each  other  thou;  it  is  the  tendency  of  youth 
ful  friendships  to  slip  into  this  mode  of  address].  "Let  me 
give  you  a  piece  of  advice,  my  dear  fellow.  Don't  read  so 
many  books,  and  look  a  little  more  at  the  lasses.  The  jades 
have  some  good  points  about  them,  0  Marius!  By  dint  of 
fleeing  and  blushing,  you  will  become  brutalized." 

On  other  occasions,  Courfeyrac  encountered  him  and 
said: — "Good  morning,  Monsieur  1'Abbe!" 

When  Courfeyrac  had  addressed  to  him  some  remark  of  this 
nature,  Marius  avoided  women,  both  young  and  old,  more  than 
ever  for  a  week  to  come,  and  he  avoided  Courfeyrac  to  boot. 

Nevertheless,  there  existed  in  all  the  immensity  of  creation, 
two  women  whom  Marius  did  not  flee,  and  to  whom  he  paid  no 
attention  whatever.  In  truth,  he  would  have  been  very  much 
amazed  if  he  had  been  informed  that  they  were  women.  One 
was  the  bearded  old  woman  who  swept  out  his  chamber,  and 
caused  Courfeyrac  to  say :  "Seeing  that  his  servant  woman 
wears  his  beard,  Marius  does  not  wear  his  own  beard.''  The 
other  was  a  sort  of  little  girl  whom  he  saw  very  often,  and 
whom  he  never  looked  at. 

For  more  than  a  year,  Marius  had  noticed  in  one  of  the 
walks  of  the  Luxembourg,  the  one  which  skirts  the  parapet 
of  the  Pepiniere,  a  man  and  a  very  young  girl,  who  were 
almost  always  seated  side  by  side  on  the  same  bench,  at  the 
most  solitary  end  of  the  alley,  on  the  Rue  de  1'Ouest  side. 
Every  time  that  that  chance  which  meddles  with  the  strolls 
of  persons  whose  gaze  is  turned  inwards,  led  Marius  to  that 
walk, — and  it  was  nearly  every  day, — he  found  this  couple 
there.  The  man  appeared  to  be  about  sixty  years  of  age;  h 


144  MARIUS 

seemed  sad  and  serious ;  his  whole  person  presented  the  robust 
and  weary  aspect  peculiar  to  military  men  who  have  retired 
from  the  service.  If  he  had  worn  a  decoration,  Marius  would 
have  said :  "He  is  an  ex-officer."  He  had  a  kindly  but  unap- 
proachable air,  and  he  never  let  his  glance  linger  on  the  eyes 
of  any  one.  He  wore  blue  trousers,  a  blue  frock  coat  and  a 
broad-brimmed  hat,  which  always  appeared  to  be  new,  a  black 
cravat,  a  quaker  shirt,  that  is  to  say,  it  was  dazzlingly  white, 
but  of  coarse  linen.  A  grisette  who  passed  near  him  one  day. 
said :  "Here's  a  very  tidy  widower."  His  hair  was  very  white. 

The  first  time  that  the  young  girl  who  accompanied  him 
came  and  seated  herself  on  the  bench  which  they  seemed  to 
have  adopted,  she  was  a  sort  of  child  thirteen  or  fourteen  years 
of  age,  so  thin  as  to  be  almost  homely,  awkward,  insignificant, 
and  with  a  possible  promise  of  handsome  eyes.  Only,  they 
were  always  raised  with  a  sort  of  displeasing  assurance.  Her 
dress  was  both  aged  and  childish,  like  the  dress  of  the  scholars 
in  a  convent ;  it  consisted  of  a  badly  cut  gown  of  black  merino. 
They  had  the  air  of  being  father  and  daughter. 

Marius  scanned  this  old  man,  who  was  not  yet  aged,  and 
this  little  girl,  who  was  not  yet  a  person,  for  a  few  days,  and 
thereafter  paid  no  attention  to  them.  They,  on  their  side,  did 
not  appear  even  to  see  him.  They  conversed  together  with  a 
peaceful  and  indifferent  air.  The  girl  chatttered  incessantly 
and  merrily.  The  old  man  talked  but  little,  and,  at  times, 
he  fixed  on  her  eyes  overflowing  with  an  ineffable  paternity. 

Marius  had  acquired  the  mechanical  habit  of  strolling  in 
that  walk.  He  invariably  found  them  there. 

This  is  the  way  things  went : — 

Marius  liked  to  arrive  by  the  end  of  the  alley  which  was 
furthest  from  their  bench ;  he  walked  the  whole  length  of  the 
alley,  passed  in  front  of  them,  then  returned  to  the  extremity 
whence  he  had  come,  and  began  again.  This  he  did  five  or 
six  times  in  the  course  of  his  promenade,  and  the  promenade 
was  taken  five  or  six  times  a  week,  without  its  having  occurred 
to  him  or  to  these  people  to  exchange  a  greeting.  That  per- 
sonage, and  that  young  girl,  although  they  appeared, — and 


THK  CONJUNCTION  OF  TWO  STAK8 

perhaps  because  they  appeared, — to  shun  all  glances,  had, 
naturally,  caused  some  attention  on  the  part  of  the  five  or 
six  students  who  strolled  along  the  Pepiniere  from  time  to 
time;  the  studious  after  their  lectures,  the  others  after  their 
game  of  billiards.  Courfeyrac,  who  was  among  the  last,  had 
observed  them  several  times,  but,  finding  the  girl  homely,  he 
had  speedily  and  carefully  kept  out  of  the  way.  He  had  fled, 
discharging  at  them  a  sobriquet,  like  a  Parthian  dart.  Im- 
pressed solely  with  the  child's  gown  and  the  old  man's  hair, 
he  had  dubbed  the  daughter  Mademoiselle  Lanoire,  and  the 
father,  Monsieur  Leblanc.  so  that,  as  no  one  knew  them  under 
any  other  title,  this  nickname  became  a  law  in  the  default 
of  any  other  name.  The  students  said :  "Ah !  Monsieur 
Leblanc  is  on  his  bench."  And  Marius,  like  the  rest,  had 
found  it  convenient  to  call  this  unknown  gentleman  Monsieur 
Leblanc. 

We  shall  follow  their  example,  and  we  shall  say  M.  Leblanc, 
in  order  to  facilitate  this  tale. 

So  Marius  saw  them  nearly  every  day,  at  the  same  hour, 
during  the  first  year.  He  found  the  man  to  his  taste,  but  the 
girl  insipid. 

CHAPTER    II 

LUX  FACTA  EST 

DURING  the  second  year,  precisely  at  the  point  in  this 
history  which  the  reader  has  now  reached,  it  chanced  that  this 
habit  of  the  Luxembourg  was  interrupted,  without  Marius 
himself  being  quite  aware  why,  and  nearly  six  months  elapsed, 
during  which  he  did  not  set  foot  in  the  alley.  One  day,  at 
last,  he  returned  thither  once  more;  it  was  a  serene  summer 
morning,  and  Marius  was  in  joyous  mood,  as  one  is  when 
the  weather  is  fine.  It  seemed  to  him  that  he  had  in  his  heart 
all  the  songs  of  the  birds  that  he  was  listening  to,  and  all 
the  bits  of  blue  sky  of  which  he  caught  glimpses  through  the 
leaves  of  the  trees. 

He  went  straight  to  "his  alley,"  and  when  he  reached  the 


146  MAKIU8 

end  of  it  he  perceived,  still  on  the  same  bench,  that  well-known 
couple.  Only,  when  he  approached,  it  certainly  was  the  same 
man ;  but  it  seemed  to  him  that  it  was  no  longer  the  same  girl. 
The  person  whom  he  now  beheld  was  a  tall  and  beautiful 
creature,  possessed  of  all  the  most  charming  lines  of  a  woman 
at  the  precise  moment  when  they  are  still  combined  with  all 
the  most  ingenuous  graces  of  the  child;  a  pure  and  fugitive 
moment,  which  can  be  expressed  only  by  these  two  words, — 
"fifteen  years."  She  had  wonderful  brown  hair,  shaded  with 
threads  of  gold,  a  brow  that  seemed  made  of  marble,  cheeks 
that  seemed  made  of  rose-leaf,  a  pale  flush,  an  agitated  white- 
ness, an  exquisite  mouth,  whence  smiles  darted  like  sunbeams, 
and  words  like  music,  a  head  such  as  Raphael  would  have 
given  to  Mary,  set  upon  a  neck  that  Jean  Goujon  would  have 
attributed  to  a  Venus.  And,  in  order  that  nothing  might  be 
lacking  to  this  bewitching  face,  her  nose  was  not  handsome — 
it  was  pretty;  neither  straight  nor  curved,  neither  Italian  nor 
Greek ;  it  was  the  Parisian  nose,  that  is  to  say,  spiritual, 
delicate,  irregular,  pure, — which  drives  painters  to  despair, 
and  charms  poets. 

When  Marius  passed  near  her,  he  could  not  see  her  eyes, 
which  were  constantly  lowered.  He  saw  only  her  long  chest- 
nut lashes,  permeated  with  shadow  and  modesty. 

This  did  not  prevent  the  beautiful  child  from  smiling  as  she 
listened  to  what  the  white-haired  old  man  was  saying  to  her, 
and  nothing  could  be  more  fascinating  than  that  fresh  smile, 
combined  with  those  drooping  eyes. 

For  a  moment,  Marius  thought  that  she  was  another 
daughter  of  the  same  man.  a  sister  of  the  former,  no  doubt. 
But  when  the  invariable  habit  of  his  stroll  brought  him,  for 
the  second  time,  near  the  bench,  and  he  had  examined  her 
attentively,  he  recognized  her  as  the  same.  In  six  months  the 
little  girl  had  become  a  young  maiden ;  that  was  all.  Nothing 
is  more  frequent  than  this  phenomenon.  There  is  a  moment 
when  girls  blossom  out  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye,  and  become 
roses  all  at  once.  One  left  them  children  but  yesterday;  to- 
day, one  finds  them  disquieting  to  the  feelings. 


TEE  CONJUNCTION  OF  TWO  STARS  147 

This  child  had  not  only  grown,  she  had  become  idealized. 
As  three  days  in  April  suffice  to  cover  certain  trees  with 
flowers,  six  months  had  sufficed  to  clothe  her  with  beauty. 
Her  April  had  arrived. 

One  sometimes  sees  people,  who,  poor  and  mean,  seem  to 
wake  up,  pass  suddenly  from  indigence  to  luxury,  indulge  in 
expenditures  of  all  sorts,  and  become  dazzling,  prodigal,  mag- 
nificent, all  of  a  sudden.  That  is  the  result  of  having  pocketed 
an  income;  a  note  fell  due  yesterday.  The  young  girl  had 
received  her  quarterly  income. 

And  then,  she  was  no  longer  the  school-girl  with  her  felt 
hat,  her  merino  gown,  her  scholar's  shoes,  and  red  hands; 
taste  had  come  to  her  with  beauty;  she  was  a  well-dressed 
person,  clad  with  a  sort  of  rich  and  simple  elegance,  and  with- 
out affectation.  She  wore  a  dress  of  black  damask,  a  cape  of 
the  same  material,  and  a  bonnet  of  white  crape.  Her  white 
gloves  displayed  the  delicacy  of  the  hand  which  toyed  with  the 
carved,  Chinese  ivory  handle  of  a  parasol,  and  her  silken  shoe 
outlined  the  smallness  of  her  foot.  When  one  passed  near  her, 
her  whole  toilette  exhaled  a  youthful  and  penetrating  perfume. 

As  for  the  man,  he  was  the  same  as  usual. 

The  second  time  that  Marius  approached  her.  the  young 
girl  raised  her  eyelids;  her  eyes  were  of  a  deep,  celestial  blue, 
but  in  that  veiled  azure,  there  was,  as  yet,  nothing  but  the 
glance  of  a  child.  She  looked  at  Marius  indifferently,  as  she 
would  have  stared  at  the  brat  running  beneath  the  sycamores, 
or  the  marble  vase  which  cast  a  shadow  on  the  bench,  and 
Marius,  on  his  side,  continued  his  promenade,  and  thought 
about  something  else. 

He  passed  near  the  bench  where  the  young  girl  sat,  five  or 
six  times,  but  without  even  turning  his  eyes  in  her  direction. 

On  the  following  days,  he  returned,  as  was  his  wont,  to  the 
Luxembourg:  as  usual,  he  found  there  "the  father  and  daugh- 
ter;" but  he  paid  no  further  attention  to  them.  He  thought 
no  more  about  the  girl  now  that  she  was  beautiful  than  he  had 
when  she  was  homely.  He  passed  very  near  the  bench  where 
she  sat,  because  such  was  his  habit. 


148  MAKIU8 

CHAPTER   III 

EFFECT  OF  THE  SPRING 

ONE  day,  the  air  was  warm,  the  Luxembourg  was  inundated 
with  light  and  shade,  the  sky  was  as  pure  as  though  the  angels 
had  washed  it  that  morning,  the  sparrows  were  giving  vent  to 
little  twitters  in  the  depths  of  the  chestnut-trees.  Marius  had 
thrown  open  his  whole  soul  to  nature,  he  was  not  thinking  of 
anything,  he  simply  lived  and  breathed,  he  passed  near  the 
bench,  the  young  girl  raised  her  eyes  to  him,  the  two  glances 
met. 

What  was  there  in  the  young  girl's  glance  on  this  occasion  ? 
Marius  could  not  have  told.  There  was  nothing  and  there 
was  everything.  It  was  a  strange  flash. 

She  dropped  her  eyes,  and  he  pursued  his  way. 

What  he  had  just  seen  was  no  longer  the  ingenuous  and 
simple  eye  of  a  child ;  it  was  a  mysterious  gulf  which  had  half 
opened,  then  abruptly  closed  again. 

There  comes  a  day  when  the  young  girl  glances  in  this 
manner.  Woe  to  him  who  chances  to  be  there ! 

That  first  gaze  of  a  soul  which  does  not,  as  yet,  know  itself, 
is  like  the  dawn  in  the  sky.  It  is  the  awakening  of  something 
radiant  and  strange.  Nothing  can  give  any  idea  of  the 
dangerous  charm  of  that  unexpected  gleam,  which  flashes 
suddenly  and  vaguely  forth  from  adorable  shadows,  and  which 
is  composed  of  all  the  innocence  of  the  present,  and  of  all  the 
passion  of  the  future.  It  is  a  sort  of  undecided  tenderness 
which  reveals  itself  by  chance,  and  which  waits.  It  is  a  snare 
which  the  innocent  maiden  sets  unknown  to  herself,  and  in 
which  she  captures  hearts  without  either  wishing  or  knowing 
it.  It  is  a  virgin  looking  like  a  woman. 

It  is  rare  that  a  profound  revery  does  not  spring  from  that 
glance,  where  it  falls.  All  purities  and  all  candors  meet  in 
that  celestial  and  fatal  gleam  which,  more  than  all  the  best- 
planned  tender  glances  of  coquettes,  possesses  the  magic  power 


THE  CONJUNCTION  OF  TWO  STARS  140 

of  causing  the  sudden  blossoming,  in  the  depths  of  the  soul,  of 
that  sombre  'flower,  impregnated  with  perfume  and  with 
poison,  which  is  called  love. 

That  evening,  on  his  return  to  his  garret,  Marius  cast  his 
eyes  over  his  garments,  and  perceived,  for  the  first  time,  that 
he  had  been  so  slovenly,  indecorous,  and  inconceivably  stupid 
as  to  go  for  his  walk  in  the  Luxembourg  with  his  "every-day 
clothes,"  that  is  to  say,  with  a  hat  battered  near  the  band, 
coarse  carter's  boots,  black  trousers  which  showed  white  at 
the  knees,  and  a  black  coat  which  was  pale  at  the  elbows. 


CHAPTER    IV 

BEGINNING  OF  A  GREAT  MALADY 

ON  the  following  day,  at  the  accustomed  hour,  Marius  drew 
from  his  wardrobe  his  new  coat,  his  new  trousers,  his  new  hat, 
and  his  new  boots;  he  clothed  himself  in  this  complete 
panoply,  put  on  his  gloves,  a  tremendous  luxury,  and  set  off 
for  the  Luxembourg. 

On  the  way  thither,  he  encountered  Courfeyrac,  and  pre- 
tended not  to  see  him.  Courfeyrac,  on  his  return  home,  said 
to  his  friends : — 

"I  have  just  met  Marius'  new  hat  and  new  coat,  with 
Marius  inside  them.  He  was  going  to  pass  an  examination, 
no  doubt.  He  looked  utterly  stupid." 

On  arriving  at  the  Luxembourg,  Marius  made  the  tour  of 
the  fountain  basin,  and  stared  at  the  swans;  then  he  remained 
for  a  long  time  in  contemplation  before  a  statue  whose  head 
was  perfectly  black  with  mould,  and  one  of  whose  hips  was 
missing.  Xear  the  basin  there  was  a  bourgeois  forty  years  of 
age,  with  a  prominent  stomach,  who  was  holding  by  the  hand 
a  little  urchin  of  five,  and  saying  to  him:  "Shun  excess,  my 
son,  keep  at  an  equal  distance  from  despotism  and  from  an- 
archy." Marius  listened  to  this  bourgeois.  Then  he  made  the 
circuit  of  the  basin  once  more.  At  last  he  directed  his  course 


150  MARIUB 

towards  "his  alley,"  slowly,  and  as  if  with  regret.  One  would 
have  said  that  he  was  both  forced  to  go  there  and  withheld 
from  doing  so.  He  did  not  perceive  it  himself,  and  thought 
that  he  was  doing  as  he  always  did. 

On  turning  into  the  walk,  he  saw  M.  Leblanc  and  the  young 
girl  at  the  other  end,  "on  their  bench."  He  buttoned  his  coat 
up  to  the  very  top,  pulled  it  down  on  his  body  so  that  there 
might  be  no  wrinkles,  examined,  with  a  certain  complaisance, 
the  lustrous  gleams  of  his  trousers,  and  marched  on  the  bench. 
This  march  savored  of  an  attack,  and  certainly  of  a  desire 
for  conquest.  So  I  say  that  he  marched  on  the  bench,  as  I 
should  say :  "Hannibal  marched  on  Rome." 

However,  all  his  movements  were  purely  mechanical,  and 
he  had  interrupted  none  of  the  habitual  preoccupations  of  his 
mind  and  labors.  At  that  moment,  he  was  thinking  that  the 
Manuel  du  Baccalaureat  was  a  stupid  book,  and  that  it  must 
have  been  drawn  up  by  rare  idiots,  to  allow  of  three  tragedies 
of  Racine  and  only  one  comedy  of  Moliere  being  analyzed 
therein  as  masterpieces  of  the  human  mind.  There  was  a 
piercing  whistling  going  on  in  his  ears.  As  he  approached  the 
bench,  he  held  fast  to  the  folds  in  his  coat,  and  fixed  his  eyes 
on  the  young  girl.  It  seemed  to  him  that  she  filled  the  entire 
extremity  of  the  alley  with  a  vague  blue  light. 

In  proportion  as  he  drew  near,  his  pace  slackened  more  and 
more.  On  arriving  at  some  little  distance  from  the  bench,  and 
long  before  he  had  reached  the  end  of  the  walk,  he  halted,  and 
could  not  explain  to  himself  why  he  retraced  his  steps.  He  did 
not  even  say  to  himself  that  he  would  not  go  as  far  as  the  end. 
It  was  only  with  difficulty  that  the  young  girl  could  have  per- 
ceived him  in  the  distance  and  noted  his  fine  appearance  in  his 
new  clothes.  Nevertheless,  he  held  himself  very  erect,  in  case 
any  one  should  be  looking  at  him  from  behind. 

He  attained  the  opposite  end,  then  came  back,  and  this  time 
he  approached  a  little  nearer  to  the  bench.  He  even  got  to 
within  three  intervals  of  trees,  but  there  he  felt  an  indescriba- 
ble impossibility  of  proceeding  further,  and  he  hesitated.  He 
thought  he  saw  the  young  girl's  face  bending  towards  him. 


HE    HEARD    AN     INEFFABLE    VOICE    WHICH     MUST    HAVE    BEEN 
"  HER     VOICE." 


THE  CONJUNCTION  OF  TWO  KTARS  ]51 

But  he  exerted  a  manly  and  violent  effort,  subdued  his  hesita- 
tion, and  walked  straight  ahead.  A  few  seconds  later,  he 
rushed  in  front  of  the  hench,  erect  and  firm,  reddening  to  the 
very  ears,  without  daring  to  cast  a  glance  either  to  the  right  or 
to  the  left,  with  his  hand  thrust  into  his  coat  like  a  statesman. 
At  the  moment  when  he  passed, — under  the  cannon  of  the 
place, — he  felt  his  heart  beat  wildly.  As  on  the  preceding  day, 
she  wore  her  damask  gown  and  her  crape  bonnet.  He  heard 
an  ineffable  voice,  which  must  have  been  "her  voice."  She  was 
talking  tranquilly.  She  was  very  pretty.  He  felt  it,  although 
he  made  no  attempt  to  see  her.  "She  could  not,  however,"  he 
thought,  "help  feeling  esteem  and  consideration  for  me,  if  she 
only  knew  that  I  am  the  veritable  author  of  the  dissertation  on 
Marcos  Obregon  de  la  Ronde,  which  M.  Francois  de  Neuf- 
chateau  put,  as  though  it  were  his  own,  at  the  head  of  his 
edition  of  Gil  Bias."  He  went  beyond  the  bench  as  far  as  the 
extremity  of  the  walk,  which  was  very  near,  then  turned  on  his 
heel  and  passed  once  more  in  front  of  the  lovely  girl.  This 
time,  he  was  very  pale.  Moreover,  all  his  emotions  were  dis- 
agreeable. As  he  went  further  from  the  bench  and  the  young 
girl,  and  while  his  back  was  turned  to  her,  he  fancied  that  she 
was  gazing  after  him,  and  that  made  him  stumble. 

He  did  not  attempt  to  approach' the  bench  again;  he  halted 
near  the  middle  of  the  walk,  and  there,  a  thing  which  he  never 
did,  he  sat  down,  and  reflecting  in  the  most  profoundly  indis- 
tinct depths  of  his  spirit,  that  after  all,  it  was  hard  that  per- 
sons whose  white  bonnet  and  black  gown  he  admired  should  be 
absolutely  insensible  to  his  splendid  trousers  and  his  new 
coat. 

At  the  expiration  of  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  he  rose,  as  though 
he  were  on  the  point  of  again  beginning  his  march  towards 
that  bench  which  was  surrounded  by  an  aureole.  But  he  re- 
mained standing  there,  motionless.  For  the  first  time  in 
fifteen  months,  he  said  to  himself  that  that  gentleman  who  sat 
there  every  day  with  his  daughter,  had,  on  his  side,  noticed 
him,  and  probably  considered  his  assiduity  singular. 

For  the  first  time,  also,  he  was  conscious  of  some  irreverence 


152  MARWS 

in  designating  that  stranger,  even  in  his  secret  thoughts,  by  the 
sobriquet  of  M.  le  Blanc. 

He  stood  thus  for  several  minutes,  with  drooping  he-id, 
tracing  figures  in  the  sand,  with  the  cane  which  he  held  in  his 
hand. 

Then  he  turned  abruptly  in  the  direction  opposite  to  the 
bench,  to  M.  Leblanc  and  his  daughter,  and  went  home. 

That  day  he  forgot  to  dine.  At  eight  o'clock  in  the  evening 
he  perceived  this  fact,  and  as  it  was  too  late  to  go  down  to  the 
Rue  Saint-Jacques,  he  said:  "Never  mind!"  and  ate  a  bit  of 
bread. 

He  did  not  go  to  bed  until  he  had  brushed  his  coat  and 
folded  it  up  with  great  care. 


CHAPTER   V 

DIVERS    CLAPS   OF   THUNDER    FALL   ON    MA'AM    BOUGON 

ON  the  following  day,  Ma'am  Bougon,  as  Courfeyrac  styled 
the  old  portress-principal-tenant,  housekeeper  of  the  Gorbeau 
hovel,  Ma'am  Bougon,  whose  name  was,  in  reality,  Madame 
Burgon,  as  we  have  found  out,  but  this  iconoclast,  Courfeyrac, 
respected  nothing, — Ma'am  Bougou  observed,  with  stupefac- 
tion, that  M.  Marius  was  going  out  again  in  his  new  coat. 

He  went  to  the  Luxembourg  again,  but  he  did  not  proceed 
further  than  his  bench  midway  of  the  alley.  He  seated  himself 
there,  as  on  the  preceding  day,  surveying  from  a  distance,  and 
clearly  making  out,  the  white  bonnet,  the  black  dress,  and 
above  all,  that  blue  light.  He  did  not  stir  from  it,  and  only 
went  home  when  the  gates  of  the  Luxembourg  closed.  He  did 
not  see  M.  Leblanc  and  his  daughter  retiio.  He  concluded  that 
they  had  quitted  the  garden  by  the  gate  on  the  Rue  do  1'Ouest. 
Later  on,  several  weeks  afterwards,  when  he  came  to  think  it 
over,  he  could  never  recall  where  he  had  dined  that  even- 
ing. 

On  the  following  day,  which  was  the  third,  Ma'am  Bougon 


THE  COXJUXCTIOX  OF  TWO  XTAR8  153 

was  thunderstruck.  Marius  went  out  in  his  new  coat.  "Three 
days  in  succession  !"  she  exclaimed. 

She  tried  to  follow  him,  hut  Marius  walked  hriskly,  and  with 
immense  strides;  it  was  a  hippopotamus  undertaking  the  pur- 
suit of  a  chamois.  She  lost  sight  of  him  in  two  minutes,  and 
returned  breathless,  three-quarters  choked  with  asthma,  and 
furious.  "If  there  is  any  sense,"  she  growled,  "in  putting  on 
one's  best  clothes  every  day,  and  making  people  run  like  this!" 

Marius  betook  himself  to  the  Luxembourg. 

The  young  girl  was  there  with  M.  Leblane.  Marius  pn- 
proached  as  near  as  he  could,  pretending  tc  be  busy  reading  a 
book,  but  he  halted  afar  off,  then  returned  and  seated  himself 
on  his  bench,  where  he  spent  four  hours  in  watching  the  house- 
sparrows  who  were  skipping  about  the  walk,  and  who  produced 
on  him  the  impression  that  they  were  making  sport  of  him. 

A  fortnight  passed  thus.  Marius  went  to  the  Luxembourg 
no  longer  for  the  sake  of  strolling  there,  but  to  seat  himself 
always  in  the  same  spot,  and  that  without  knowing  why.  Once 
arrived  there,  he  did  not  stir.  He  put  on  his  new  coat  every 
morning,  for  the  purpose  of  not  showing  himself,  and  he  began 
all  over  again  on  the  morrow. 

She  was  decidedly  a  marvellous  beauty.  The  only  remark 
approaching  a  criticism,  that  could  be  made,  wr.s,  that  the  con- 
tradiction between  her  gaze,  which  was  melancholy,  and  her 
smile,  which  was  merry,  gave  a  rather  wild  effect  to  her  face, 
which  sometimes  caused  this  sweet  countenance  to  become 
strange  without  ceasing  to  be  charming. 


CHAPTER   VI 

TAKEX    PRISONER 

Ox  one  of  the  last  days  of  the  second  week,  Marius  was 
seated  on  his  bench,  as  usual,  holding  in  his  hand  an  open  book, 
of  which  he  had  not  turned  a  page  for  the  last  two  hours.  All 
at  once  he  started.  An  event  was  taking  place  at  the  other 


154  MARIU8 

extremity  of  the  walk.  Leblanc  and  his  daughter  had  just 
left  their  seat,  and  the  daughter  had  taken  her  father's  arm, 
and  both  were  advancing  slowly,  towards  the  middle  of  the 
alley  where  Marius  was.  Marius  closed  his  book,  then  opened 
it  again,  then  forced  himself  to  read;  he  trembled ;  the  aureole 
was  coming  straight  towards  him.  "Ah!  good  Heavens!" 
thought  he,  "I  shall  not  have  time  to  strike  an  attitude." 
Still  the  white-haired  man  and  the  girl  advanced.  It  seemed 
to  him  that  this  lasted  for  a  century,  and  that  it  was  but  a 
second.  "What  are  they  coming  in  this  direction  for?"  he 
asked  himself.  "What!  She  will  pass  here?  Her  feet  will 
tread  this  sand,  this  walk,  two  paces  from  me?"  He  was  ut- 
terly upset,  he  would  have  liked  to  be  very  handsome,  he  would 
have  liked  to  own  the  cross.  He  heard  the  soft  and  measured 
sound  of  their  approaching  footsteps.  He  imagined  that  M. 
Leblanc  was  darting  angry  glances  at  him.  "Is  that  gentle- 
man going  to  address  me?"  he  thought  to  himself.  He  dropped 
his  head ;  when  he  raised  it  again,  they  were  very  near  him. 
The  young  girl  passed,  and  as  she  passed,  she  glanced  at  him. 
She  gazed  steadily  at  him,  with  a  pensive  sweetness  which 
thrilled  Marius  from  head  to  foot.  It  seemed  to  him  that  she 
was  reproaching  him  for  having  allowed  so  long  a  time  to 
elapse  without  coming  as  far  as  her,  and  that  she  was  saying  to 
him  :  "I  am  coming  myself."  Marius  was  dazzled  by  those  eyes 
fraught  with  rays  and  abysses. 

He  felt  his  brain  on  fire.  She  had  come  to  him,  what  joy ! 
And  then,  how  she  had  looked  at  him !  She  appeared  to  him 
more  beautiful  than  he  had  ever  seen  her  yet.  Beautiful  with 
a  beauty  which  was  wholly  feminine  and  angelic,  with  a  com- 
plete beauty  which  would  have  made  Petrarch  sing  and  Dante 
kneel.  It  seemed  to  him  that  he  was  floating  free  in  the  azure 
heavens.  At  the  same  time,  he  was  horribly  vexed  because 
there  was  dust  on  his  boots. 

He  thought  he  felt  sure  that  she  had  looked  at  his  boots 
too. 

He  followed  her  with  his  eyes  until  she  disappeared.  Then 
he  started  up  and  walked  about  the  Luxembourg  garden  like  a 


TEE  CONJUNCTION  OF  TWO  KTARS  155 

madman.  It  is  possible  that,  at  times,  he  laughed  to  himself 
and  talked  aloud.  He  was  so  dreamy  when  he  came  near  the 
children's  nurses,  that  each  one  of  them  thought  him  in  love 
with  her. 

He  quitted  the  Luxembourg,  hoping  to  find  her  again  in  the 
street. 

He  encountered  Courfeyrac  under  the  arcades  of  the  Odeon, 
and  said  to  him :  "Come  and  dine  with  me."  They  went  off 
to  Rousseau's  and  spent  six  francs.  Marius  ate  like  an  ogre. 
He  gave  the  waiter  six  sous.  At  dessert,  he  said  to  Cour- 
feyrac. "Have  you  read  the  paper?  What  a  fine  discourse 
Audry  de  Puyraveau  delivered  !" 

He  was  desperately  in  love. 

After  dinner,  he  said  to  Courfeyrac:  "I  will  treat  you 
to  the  play."  They  went  to  the  Porte-Sainte-Martin  to  see 
Frederick  in  I'Auberge  des  Adrets.  Marius  was  enormously 
amused. 

At  the  same  time,  he  had  a  redoubled  attack  of  shyness. 
On  emerging  from  the  theatre,  he  refused  to  look  at  the  garter 
of  a  modiste  who  was  stepping  across  a  gutter,  and  Cour- 
feyrac, who  said :  "I  should  like  to  put  that  woman  in  my 
collection,"  almost  horrified  him. 

Courfeyrac  invited  him  to  breakfast  at  the  Cafe  Voltaire 
on  the  following  morning.  Marius  went  thither,  and  ate  even 
more  than  on  the  preceding  evening.  He  was  very  thoughtful 
and  very  merry.  One  would  have  said  that  he  was  taking 
advantage  of  every  occasion  to  laugh  uproariously.  He  ten- 
derly embraced  some  man  or  other  from  the  provinces,  who 
was  presented  to  him.  A  circle  of  students  formed  round  the 
table,  and  they  spoke  of  the  nonsense  paid  for  by  the  State 
which  was  uttered  from  the  rostrum  in  the  Sorbonne,  then  the 
conversation  fell  upon  the  faults  and  omissions  in  Guicherat's 
dictionaries  and  grammars.  Marius  interrupted  the  discus- 
sion to  exclaim  :  "But  it  is  very  agreeable,  all  the  same  to  have 
the  cross !" 

"That's  queer  !"  whispered  Courfeyrac  to  Jean  Prouvaire. 

"No,"  responded  Prouvaire,  "that's  serious." 


156  MARW8 

It  was  serious ;  in  fact,  Marius  liad  reached  that  first  violent 
and  charming  hour  with  which  grand  passions  begin. 

A  glance  had  wrought  all  this. 

When  the  mine  is  charged,  when  the  conflagration  is  ready, 
nothing  is  more  simple.  A  glance  is  a  spark. 

It  was  all  over  with  him.  Marius  loved  a  woman.  His 
fate  was  entering  the  unknown. 

The  glance  of  women  resembles  certain  combinations  of 
wheels,  which  are  tranquil  in  appearance  yet  formidable.  You 
pass  close  to  them  every  day,  peaceably  and  with  impunity,  and 
without  a  suspicion  of  anything.  A  moment  arrives  when  you 
forget  that  the  thing  is  there.  You  go  and  come,  dream,  speak, 
laugh.  All  at  once  you  feel  yourself  clutched;  all  is  over. 
The  wheels  hold  you  fast,  the  glance  has  ensnared  you.  It  has 
taught  you,  no  matter  where  or  how,  by  some  portion  of  your 
thought  which  was  fluttering  loose,  by  some  distraction  which 
had  attacked  you.  You  are  lost.  The  whole  of  you  passes 
into  it.  A  chain  of  mysterious  forces  takes  possession  of  you. 
You  struggle  in  vain;  no  more  human  succor  is  possible.  You 
go  on  falling  from  gearing  to  gearing,  from  agony  to  agony, 
from  torture  to  torture,  you,  your  mind,  your  fortune,  your 
future,  your  soul ;  and,  according  to  whether  you  are  in  the 
power  of  a  wicked  creature,  or  of  a  noble  heart,  you  will  not 
escape  from  this  terrifying  machine  otherwise  than  disfigured 
with  shame,  or  transfigured  by  passion. 


CHAPTER    VII 

ADVENTURES  OF  THE  LETTER  U  DELIVERED  OVER  TO 
CONJECTURES 

ISOLATION,  detachment,  from  everything,  pride,  indepen- 
dence, the  taste  of  nature,  the  absence  of  daily  and  material 
activity,  the  life  within  himself,  the  secret  conflicts  of  chastity, 
a  benevolent  ecstasy  towards  all  creation,  had  prepared  Marius 
for  this  possession  which  is  called  passion.  His  worship  of  his 


THE  CONJUNCTION  OF  TWO  NT  A  It  N  157 

father  had  gradually  become  a  religion,  and,  like  all  religions, 
it  had  retreated  to  the  depths  of  his  soul.  -Something  was 
required  in  the  foreground.  Love  came. 

A  full  month  elapsed,  during  which  Marius  went  every  day 
to  the  Luxembourg.  When  the  hour  arrived,  nothing  could 
hold  him  back. — "He  is  on  duty,"  said  Courfeyrac.  Marius 
lived  in  a  state  of  delight.  It  is  certain  that  the  young  girl 
did  look  at  him. 

He  had  finally  grown  bold,  and  approached  the  bench. 
Still,  he  did  not  pass  in  front  of  it  any  more,  in  obedience  to 
the  instinct  of  timidity  and  to  the  instinct  of  prudence  com- 
mon to  lovers.  He  considered  it  better  not  to  attract  "the 
attention  of  the  father."  He  combined  his  stations  behind 
the  trees  and  the  pedestals  of  the  statues  with  a  profound 
diplomacy,  so  that  he  might  be  seen  as  much  as  possible  by 
the  young  girl  and  as  little  as  possible  by  the  old  gentleman. 
Sometimes,  he  remained  motionless  by  the  half-hour  together 
in  the  shade  of  a  Leonidas  or  a  Spartacus,  holding  in  his  hand 
a  book,  above  which  his  eyes,  gently  raised,  sought  the  beauti- 
ful girl,  and  she,  on  her  side,  turned  her  charming  profile 
towards  him  with  a  vague  smile.  While  conversing  in  the 
most  natural  and  tranquil  manner  in  the  world  with  the 
white-haired  man,  she  bent  upon  Marius  all  the  reveries  of  a 
virginal  and  passionate  eye.  Ancient  and  time-honored 
manoeuvre  which  Eve  understood  from  the  very  first  day  of 
the  world,  and  which  every  woman  understands  from  the  very 
first  day  of  her  life !  her  mouth  replied  to  one,  and  her  glance 
replied  to  another. 

It  must  be  supposed,  that  M.  Leblanc  finally  noticed  some- 
thing, for  often,  when  Marius  arrived,  he  rose  and  began  to 
walk  about.  He  had  abandoned  their  accustomed  place  and 
had  adopted  the  bench  by  the  Gladiator,  near  the  other  end  of 
the  walk,  as  though  with  the  object  of  seeing  whether  Marhis 
would  pursue  them  thither.  Marius  did  not  understand,  and 
committed  this  error.  "The  father"  began  to  grow  inexact, 
and  no  longer  brought  "his  daughter"  every  day.  Sometimes, 
he  came  alone.  Then  Marius  did  not  stay.  Another  blunder. 


158  MARIUS 

Marius  paid  no  heed  to  these  symptoms.  From  the  phase  of 
timidity,  he  had  passed,  by  a  natural  and  fatal  progress,  to  the 
phase  of  blindness.  His  love  increased.  He  dreamed  of  it 
every  night.  And  then,  an  unexpected  bliss  had  happened  to 
him,  oil  on  the  fire,  a  redoubling  of  the  shadows  over  his  eyes. 
One  evening,  at  dusk,  he  had  found,  on  the  bench  which  "M. 
Leblanc  and  his  daughter"  had  just  quitted,  a  handkerchief,  a 
very  simple  handkerchief,  without  embroidery,  but  white,  and 
fine,  and  which  seemed  to  him  to  exhale  ineffable  perfume. 
He  seized  it  with  rapture.  This  handkerchief  was  marked 
with  the  letters  U.  F.  Marius  knew  nothing  about  this  beauti- 
ful child, — neither  her  family  name,  her  Christian  name  nor 
her  abode;  these  two  letters  were  the  first  thing  of  her  that 
he  had  gained  possession  of,  adorable  initials,  upon  which  he 
immediately  began  to  construct  his  scaffolding.  U  was  evi- 
dently the  Christian  name.  "Ursule !"  he  thought,  "what 
a  delicious  name !"  He  kissed  the  handkerchief,  drank  it  in, 
placed  it  on  his  heart,  on  his  flesh,  during  the  day.  and  at 
night,  laid  it  beneath  his  lips  that  he  might  fall  asleep  on  it. 

"I  feel  that  her  whole  soul  lies  within  it !"  he  exclaimed. 

This  handkerchief  belonged  to  the  old  gentleman,  who  had 
simply  let  it  fall  from  his  pocket. 

In  the  days  which  followed  the  finding  of  this  treasure,  he 
only  displayed  himself  at  the  Luxembourg  in  the  act  of  kissing 
the  handkerchief  and  laying  it  on  his  heart.  The  beautiful 
child  understood  nothing  of  all  this,  and  signified  it  to  him  by 
imperceptible  signs. 

"0  modesty !"  said  Marius. 

CHAPTER   VIII 

THE  VETERANS  THEMSELVES  CAN  BE  HAPPY 

SINCE  we  have  pronounced  the  word  modesty,  and  since  we 
conceal  nothing,  we  ought  to  say  that  once,  nevertheless,  in 
spite  of  his  ecstasies,  "his  Ursule"  caused  him  very  serious 
grief.  It  was  on  one  of  the  days  when  she  persuaded  M. 


THE  CONJUNCTION   OF  TWO  STARS  159 

Lcblanc  to  leave  the  bench  and  stroll  along  the  walk.  A  brisk 
May  breeze  was  blowing,  which  swayed  the  crests  of  the 
plaintain-trees.  The  father  and  daughter,  arm  in  arm,  had 
just  passed  Harms'  bench.  Marius  had  risen  to  his  feet 
behind  them,  and  was  following  them  with  his  eyes,  as  was 
fitting  in  the  desperate  situation  of  his  soul. 

All  at  once,  a  gust  of  wind,  more  merry  than  the  rest,  and 
probably  charged  with  performing  the  affairs  of  Springtime, 
swept  down  from  the  nursery,  flung  itself  on  the  alley,  envel- 
oped the  young  girl  in  a  delicious  shiver,  worthy  of  Virgil's 
nymphs,  and  the  fawns  of  Theocritus,  and  lifted  her  dress, 
the  robe  more  sacred  than  that  of  Isis,  almost  to  the  height  of 
her  garter.  A  leg  of  exquisite  shape  appeared.  Marius  saw  it. 
He  was  exasperated  and  furious. 

The  young  girl  had  hastily  thrust  down  her  dress,  with  a 
divinely  troubled  motion,  but  he  was  none  the  less  angry  for 
all  that.  He  was  alone  in  the  alley,  it  is  true.  But  there 
might  have  been  some  one  there.  And  what  if  there  had  been 
some  one  there!  Can  any  one  comprehend  such  a  thing? 
What  she  had  just  done  is  horrible ! — Alas,  the  poor  child  had 
done  nothing;  there  had  been  but  one  culprit,  the  wind;  but 
Marius,  in  whom  quivered  the  Bartholo  who  exists  in  Cheru- 
bin,  was  determined  to  be  vexed,  and  was  jealous  of  his  own 
shadow.  It  is  thus,  in  fact,  that  the  harsh  and  capricious 
jealousy  of  the  flesh  awakens  in  the  human  heart,  and  takes 
possession  of  it,  even  without  any  right.  Moreover,  setting 
aside  even  that  jealousy,  the  sight  of  that  charming  leg  had 
contained  nothing  agreeable  for  him;  the  white  stocking  of 
the  first  woman  he  chanced  to  meet  would  have  afforded  him 
more  pleasure. 

When  "his  TJrsule,"  after  having  reached  the  end  of  the 
walk,  retraced  her  steps  with  M.  Leblanc,  and  passed  in  front 
of  the  bench  on  which  Marius  had  seated  himself  once  more, 
Marius  darted  a  sullen  and  ferocioTis  glance  at  her.  The 
young  girl  gave  way  to  that  slight  straightening  up  with  a 
backward  movement,  accompanied  by  a  raising  of  the  eyelids, 
which  signifies:  "Well,  what  is  the  matter?" 


160  MARIVS 

This  was  "their  first  quarrel." 

Marius  had  hardly  made  this  scene  at  her  with  his  eyes, 
when  some  one  crossed  the  walk.  It  was  a  veteran,  very  much 
bent,  extremely  wrinkled,  and  pale,  in  a  uniform  of  the  Louis 
XV.  pattern,  bearing  on  his  breast  the  little  oval  plaque  of 
red  cloth,  with  the  crossed  swords,  the  soldier's  cross  of  Saint- 
Louis,  and  adorned,  in  addition,  with  a  coat-sleeve,  which  had 
no  arm  within  it,  with  a  silver  chin  and  a  wooden  leg.  Marius 
thought  he  perceived  that  this  man  had  an  extremely  well 
satisfied  air.  It  even  struck  him  that  the  aged  cynic,  as  he 
hobbled  along  past  him,  addressed  to  him  a  very  fraternal  and 
very  merry  wink,  as  though  some  chance  had  created  an 
understanding  between  them,  and  as  though  they  had  shared 
some  piece  of  good  luck  together.  What  did  that  relic  of 
Mars  mean  by  being  so  contented  ?  What  had  passed  between 
that  wooden  leg  and  the  other?  Marius  reached  a  paroxysm 
of  jealousy. — "Perhaps  he  was  there!"  he  said  to  himself; 
"perhaps  he  saw !" — And  he  felt  a  desire  to  exterminate  the 
veteran. 

With  the  aid  of  time,  all  points  grow  dull.  Marius'  wrath 
against  "Ursule,"  just  and  legitimate  as  it  was,  passed  off. 
He  finally  pardoned  her ;  but  this  cost  him  a  great  effort ;  he 
sulked  for  three  days. 

Nevertheless,  in  spite  of  all  this,  and  because  of  all  this,  his 
passion  augmented  and  grew  to  madness. 


CHAPTER    IX 

ECLIPSE 

THE  reader  has  just  seen  how  Marius  discovered,  or  thought 
that  he  discovered,  that  She  was  named  Ursule. 

Appetite  grows  with  loving.  To  know  that  her  name  was 
Ursule  was  a  great  deal ;  it  was  very  little.  In  three  or  four 
weeks,  Marius  had  devoured  this  bliss.  He  wanted  another. 
He  wanted  to  know  where  she  lived. 


THE  CONJUNCTION  OF  TWO  UTARU 

He  had  committed  his  first  blunder,  by  falling  into  the  am- 
bush of  the  bench  by  the  Gladiator.  He  had  committed  a 
second,  by  not  remaining  at  the  Luxembourg  when  M. 
Leblanc  came  thither  alone.  He  now  committed  a  third,  and 
an  immense  one.  He  followed  "TJrsule." 

She  lived  in  the  Rue  de  1'Ouest,  in  the  most  unfrequented 
spot,  in  a  new,  three-story  house,  of  modest  appearance. 

From  that  moment  forth,  Marius  added  to  his  happiness  of 
seeing  her  at  the  Luxembourg  the  happiness  of  following  her 
home. 

His  hunger  was  increasing.  He  knew  her  first  name,  at 
least,  a  charming  name,  a  genuine  woman's  name;  he  knew 
where  she  lived;  he  wanted  to  know  who  she  was. 

One  evening,  after  he  had  followed  them  to  their  dwelling, 
and  had  seen  them  disappear  through  the  carriage  gate,  he 
entered  in  their  train  and  said  boldly  to  the  porter : — 

"Is  that  the  gentleman  who  lives  on  the  first  floor,  who  has 
just  come  in?" 

"No,"  replied  the  porter.  "He  is  the  gentleman  on  the 
third  floor." 

Another  step  gained.    This  success  emboldened  Marius. 

"On  the  front?"  he  asked. 

"Parbleu !"  said  the  porter,  "the  house  is  only  built  on 
the  street." 

"And  what  is  that  gentleman's  business?"  began  Marius 
again. 

"He  is  a  gentleman  of  property,  sir.  A  very  kind  man  who 
does  good  to  the  unfortunate,  though  not  rich  himself." 

"What  is  his  name?"  resumed  Marius. 

The  porter  raised  his  head  and  said : — 

"Are  you  a  police  spy,  sir?" 

Marius  went  off  quite  abashed,  but  delighted.  He  was 
getting  on. 

"Good,"  thought  he,  "I  know  that  her  name  is  Ursule,  that 
she  is  the  daughter  of  a  gentleman  who  lives  on  his  income, 
and  that  she  lives  there,  on  the  third  floor,  in  the  Rue  de 
FOuest." 


162  MARIUS 

On  the  following  day,  M.  Leblanc  and  his  daughter  made 
only  a  very  brief  stay  in  the  Luxembourg;  they  went  away 
while  it  was  still  broad  daylight.  Marius  followed  them  to 
the  Rue  de  1'Ouest,  as  he  had  taken  up  the  habit  of  doing. 
On  arriving  at  the  carriage  entrance  M.  Leblanc  made  his 
daughter  pass  in  first,  then  paused,  before  crossing  the  thresh- 
old, and  stared  intently  at  Marius. 

On  the  next  day  they  did  not  come  to  the  Luxembourg. 
Marius  waited  for  them  all  day  in  vain. 

At  nightfall,  he  went  to  the  Rue  de  1'Ouest,  and  saw  a  light 
in  the  windows  of  the  third  story. 

He  walked  about  beneath  the  windows  until  the  light  was 
extinguished. 

The  next  day,  no  one  at  the  Luxembourg.  Marius  waited 
all  day,  then  went  and  did  sentinel  duty  under  their  windows. 
This  carried  him  on  to  ten  o'clock  in  the  evening. 

His  dinner  took  care  of  itself.  Fever  nourishes  the  sick 
man,  and  love  the  lover. 

He  spent  a  week  in  this  manner.  M.  Leblanc  no  longer 
appeared  at  the  Luxembourg. 

Marius  indulged  in  melancholy  conjectures;  he  dared  not 
watch  the  porte  cochere  during  the  day ;  he  contented  himself 
with  going  at  night  to  gaze  upon  the  red  light  of  the  windows. 
At  times  he  saw  shadows  flit  across  them,  and  his  heart  began 
to  beat. 

On  the  eighth  day,  when  he  arrived  under  the  windows,  there 
was  no  light  in  them. 

"Hello !"  he  said,  "the  lamp  is  not  lighted  yet.  But  it  is 
dark.  Can  they  have  gone  out  ?"  He  waited  until  ten  o'clock. 
Until  midnight.  Until  one  in  the  morning.  Not  a  light 
appeared  in  the  windows  of  the  third  story,  and  no  one  entered 
the  house. 

He  went  away  in  a  very  gloomy  frame  of  mind. 

On  the  morrow, — for  he  only  existed  from  morrow  to  mor- 
row, there  was,  so  to  speak,  no  to-day  for  him, — on  the 
morrow,  he  found  no  one  at  the  Luxembourg ;  he  had  expected 
this.  At  dusk,  he  went  to  the  house. 


THE  CONJUNCTION  OF  TWO  HTAR8 

No  light  in  the  windows ;  the  shades  were  drawn ;  the  third 
floor  was  totally  dark. 

Marius  rapped  at  the  porte  cochere,  entered,  and  said  to 
the  porter: — 

"The  gentleman  on  the  third  floor?" 

"Has  moved  away,"  replied  the  porter. 

Marius  reeled  and  said  feebly : — 

"How  long  ago  ?" 

"Yesterday." 

"Where  is  he  living  now  ?" 

"I  don't  know  anything  about  it." 

"So  he  has  not  left  his  new  address?" 

"No." 

And  the  porter,  raising  his  eyes,  recognized  Marius. 

"Come !  So  it's  you !"  said  he ;  "but  you  are  decidedly  a 
spy  then?" 


BOOK  SEVENTH.— PATRON  MINETTE 
CHAPTER   I 

MINES  AND  MINERS 

HUMAN  societies  all  have  what  is  called  in  theatrical  par- 
lance, a  third  lower  floor.  The  social  soil  is  everywhere  under- 
mined, sometimes  for  good,  sometimes  for  evil.  These  works 
are  superposed  one  upon  the  other.  There  are  superior  mines 
and  inferior  mines.  There  is  a  top  and  a  bottom  in  this 
obscure  sub-soil,  which  sometimes  gives  way  beneath  civiliza- 
tion, and  which  our  indifference  and  heedlessness  trample 
under  foot.  The  Encyclopedia,  in  the  last  century,  was  a 
mine  that  was  almost  open  to  the  sky.  The  shades,  those 
sombre  hatchers  of  primitive  Christianity,  only  awaited  an 
opportunity  to  bring  about  an  explosion  under  the  Caesars  and 
to  inundate  the  human  race  with  light.  For  in  the  sacred 
shadows  there  lies  latent  light.  Volcanoes  are  full  of  a 
shadow  that  is  capable  of  flashing  forth.  Every  form  begins 
by  being  night.  The  catacombs,  in  which  the  first  mass  was 
said,  were  not  alone  the  cellar  of  Rome,  they  were  the  vaults 
of  the  world. 

Beneath  the  social  construction,  that  complicated  marvel  of 
a  structure,  there  are  excavations  of  all  sorts.  There  is  the 
religious  mine,  the  philosophical  mine,  the  economic  mine,  the 
revolutionary  mine.  Such  and  such  a  pick-axe  with  the  idea, 
such  a  pick  with  ciphers.  Such  another  with  wrath.  People 
hail  and  answer  each  other  from  one  catacomb  to  another. 
Utopias  travel  about  underground,  in  the  pipes.  There  they 
branch  out  in  every  direction.  They  sometimes  meet,  and  frat- 
ernize there.  Jean-Jacques  lends  his  pick  to  Diogenes,  who 


PATRON  MINETTE 

lends  him  his  lantern.  Sometimes  they  enter  into  combat 
there.  Calvin  seizes  Socinhis  by  the  hair.  But  nothing  arrests 
nor  interrupts  the  tension  of  all  these  energies  toward  the 
goal,  and  the  vast,  simultaneous  activity,  which  goes  and 
comes,  mounts,  descends,  and  mounts  again  in  these  obscuri- 
ties, and  which  immense  unknown  swarming  slowly  transforms 
the  top  and  the  bottom  and  the  inside  and  the  outside.  Society 
hardly  even  suspects  this  digging  which  leaves  its  surface  in- 
tact and  changes  its  bowels.  There  are  as  many  different 
subterranean  stages  as  there  are  varying  works,  as  there  are 
extractions.  What  emerges  from  these  deep  excavations  ?  The 
future. 

The  deeper  one  goes,  the  more  mysterious  are  the  toilers. 
The  work  is  good,  up  to  a  degree  which  the  social  philosophies 
are  able  to  recognize;  beyond  that  degree  it  is  doubtful  and 
mixed;  lower  down,  it  becomes  terrible.  At  a  certain  depth, 
the  excavations  are  no  longer  penetrable  by  the  spirit  of  civili- 
zation, the  limit  breathable  by  man  has  been  passed;  a  begin- 
ning of  monsters  is  possible. 

The  descending  scale  is  a  strange  one;  and  each  one  of  the 
rungs  of  this  ladder  corresponds  to  a  stage  where  philosophy 
can  find  foothold,  and  where  one  encounters  one  of  these  work- 
men, sometimes  divine,  sometimes  misshapen.  Below  John 
Huss,  there  is  Luther;  below  Luther,  there  is  Descartes;  below 
Descartes,  there  is  Voltaire;  below  Voltaire,  there  is  Condor- 
cet;  below  Condorcet,  there  is  Robespierre;  below  Robespierre, 
there  is  Marat;  below  Marat  there  is  Babeuf.  And  so  it  goes 
on.  Lower  down,  confusedly,  at  the  limit  which  separates  the 
indistinct  from  the  invisible,  one  perceives  other  gloomy  men, 
who  perhaps  do  not  exist  as  yet.  The  men  of  yesterday  are 
spectres;  those  of  to-morrow  are  forms.  The  eye  of  the  spirit 
distinguishes  them  but  obscurely.  The  embryonic  work  of  the 
future  is  one  of  the  visions  of  philosophy. 

A  world  in  limbo,  in  the  state  of  fcetus,  what  an  unheard-of 
spectre ! 

Saint-Simon,  Owen,  Fourier,  are  there  also,  in  lateral  gal- 
leries. 


166  MARIU8 

Surely,  although  a  divine  and  invisible  chain  unknown  to 
themselves,  binds  together  all  these  subterranean  pioneers  who, 
almost  always,  think  themselves  isolated,  and  who  are  not  so, 
their  works  vary  greatly,  and  the  li^ht  of  some  contrasts  with 
the  blaze  of  others.  The  first  are  paradisiacal,  the  last  are 
tragic.  Nevertheless,  whatever  may  be  the  contrast,  all  these 
toilers,  from  the  highest  to  the  most  nocturnal,  from  the  wisest 
to  the  most  foolish,  possess  one  likeness,  and  this  is  it :  disinter- 
estedness. Marat  forgets  himself  like  Jesus.  They  throw 
themselves  on  one  side,  they  omit  themselves,  they  think  not  of 
themselves.  They  have  a  glance,  and  that  glance  seeks  the 
absolute.  The  first  has  the  whole  heavens  in  his  eyes ;  the  last, 
enigmatical  though  he  may  be,  has  still,  beneath  his  eyelids, 
the  pale  beam  of  the  infinite.  Venerate  the  man,  whoever  he 
may  be,  who  has  this  sign — the  starry  eye. 

The  shadowy  eye  is  the  other  sign. 

With  it,  evil  commences.  Keflect  and  tremble  in  the  pres- 
ence of  any  one  who  has  no  glance  at  all.  The  social  order  has 
its  black  miners. 

There  is  a  point  where  depth  is  tantamount  to  burial,  and 
where  light  becomes  extinct. 

Below  all  these  mines  which  we  have  just  mentioned,  below 
all  these  galleries,  below  this  whole  immense,  subterranean, 
venous  system  of  progress  and  utopia,  much  further  on  in  the 
earth,  much  lower  than  Marat,  lower  than  Babeuf,  lower,  much 
lower,  and  without  any  connection  with  the  upper  levels,  there 
lies  the  last  mine.  A  formidable  spot.  This  is  what  we  have 
designated  as  the  le  troisieme  dessous.  It  is  the  grave  of  shad- 
ows. It  is  the  cellar  of  the  blind.  Inferi. 

This  communicates  with  the  abyss. 


PATROL  MINETTE  167 

CHAPTER   II 

THE   LOWEST   DEPTHS 

THERE  disinterestedness  vanishes.  The  demon  is  vaguely 
outlined;  each  one  is  for  himself.  The  I  in  the  eyes  howls, 
seeks,  fumbles,  and  gnaws.  The  social  Ugolino  is  in  this  gulf. 

The  wild  spectres  who  roam  in  this  grave,  almost  beasts, 
almost  phantoms,  are  not  occupied  with  universal  progress; 
they  are  ignorant  both  of  the  idea  and  of  the  word ;  they  take 
no  thought  for  anything  but  the  satisfaction  of  their  indi- 
vidual desires.  They  are  almost  unconscious,  and  there  exists 
within  them  a  sort  of  terrible  obliteration.  They  have  two 
mothers,  both  step-mothers,  ignorance  and  misery.  They  have 
a  guide,  necessity;  and  for  all  forms  of  satisfaction,  appetite. 
They  are  brutally  voracious,  that  is  to  say,  ferocious,  not  after 
the  fashion  of  the  tyrant,  but  after  the  fashion  of  the  tiger. 
From  suffering  these  spectres  pass  to  crime;  fatal  affiliation, 
dizzy  creation,  logic  of  darkness.  That  which  crawls  in  the 
social  third  lower  level  is  no  longer  complaint  stifled  by  the 
absolute;  it  is  the  protest  of  matter.  Man  there  becomes  a 
dragon.  To  be  hungry,  to  be  thirsty — that  is  the  point  of  de- 
parture; to  be  Satan — that  is  the  point  reached.  From  that 
vault  Lacenaire  emerges. 

We  have  just  seen,  in  Book  Fourth,  one  of  the  compartments 
of  the  upper  mine,  of  the  great  political,  revolutionary,  and 
philosophical  excavation.  There,  as  we  have  just  said,  all  is 
pure,  noble,  dignified,  honest.  There,  assuredly,  one  might  be 
misled ;  but  error  is  worthy  of  veneration  there,  so  thoroughly 
does  it  imply  heroism.  The  work  there  effected,  taken  as  a 
whole,  has  a  name :  Progress. 

The  moment  has  now  come  when  we  must  take  a  look  at 
other  depths,  hideous  depths.  There  exists  beneath  society, 
we  insist  upon  this  point,  and  there  will  exist,  until  that  day 
when  ignorance  shall  be  dissipated,  the  great  cavern  of  evil. 

This  cavern  is  below  all,  and  is  the  foe  of  all.    It  is  hatred, 


168  MARW8 

without  exception.  This  cavern  knows  no  philosophers;  its 
dagger  has  never  cut  a  pen.  Its  blackness  has  no  connection 
with  the  sublime  blackness  of  the  inkstand.  Never  have  the 
fingers  of  night  which  contract  beneath  this  stifling  ceiling, 
turned  the  leaves  of  a  book  nor  unfolded  a  newspaper.  Babeuf 
is  a  speculator  to  Cartouche ;  Marat  is  an  aristocrat  to  Schin- 
derhannes.  This  cavern  has  for  its  object  the  destruction  of 
everything. 

Of  everything.  Including  the  upper  superior  mines,  which 
it  execrates.  It  not  only  undermines,  in  its  hideous  swarming, 
the  actual  social  order;  it  undermines  philosophy,  it  under- 
mines human  thought,  it  undermines  civilization,  it  under- 
mines revolution,  it  undermines  progress.  Its  name  is  simply 
theft,  prostitution,  murder,  assassination.  It  is  darkness,  and 
it  desires  chaos.  Its  vault  is  formed  of  ignorance. 

All  the  others,  those  above  it,  have  but  one  object — to  sup- 
press it.  It  is  to  this  point  that  philosophy  and  progress  tend, 
with  all  their  organs  simultaneously,  by  their  amelioration  of 
the  real,  as  well  as  by  their  contemplation  of  the  absolute. 
Destroy  the  cavern  Ignorance  and  you  destroy  the  lair  Crime. 

Let  us  condense,  in  a  few  words,  a  part  of  what  we  have  just 
written.  The  only  social  peril  is  darkness. 

Humanity  is  identity.  All  men  are  made  of  the  same  clay. 
There  is  no  difference,  here  below,  at  least,  in  predestination. 
The  same  shadow  in  front,  the  same  flesh  in  the  present,  the 
same  ashes  afterwards.  But  ignorance,  mingled  with  the  hu- 
man paste,  blackens  it.  This  incurable  blackness  takes  possess- 
sion  of  the  interior  of  a  man  and  is  there  converted  into  evil. 


CHAPTER    III 

BABET,    GUEULEMER,    CLAQUESOUS,    AND    MONTPARNASSE 

A  QUARTETTE  of  ruffians,  Claqucsous,  Gueulemer,  Babet, 
and  Montparnasse  governed  the  third  lower  floor  of  Paris, 
from  1830  to  1835. 


PATRON  MINKTTE 

Gueulemer  was  a  Hercules  of  no  defined  position.  For  his 
lair  he  had  the  sewer  of  the  Arche-Marion.  He  was  six  feet 
high,  his  pectoral  muscles  were  of  marble,  his  biceps  of  brass, 
his  breath  was  that  of  a  cavern,  his  torso  that  of  a  colossus, 
his  head  that  of  a  bird.  One  thought  one  beheld  the  Farnese 
Hercules  clad  in  duck  trousers  and  a  cotton  velvet  waistcoat. 
Gueulemer,  built  after  this  sculptural  fashion,  might  have  sub- 
dued monsters;  he  had  found  it  more  expeditious  to  be  one. 
A  low  brow,  large  temples,  less  than  forty  years  of  age,  but 
with  crow's-feet,  harsh,  short  hair,  cheeks  like  a  brush,  a  beard 
like  that  of  a  wild  boar;  the  reader  can  see  the  man  before 
him.  His  muscles  called  for  work,  his  stupidity  would  have 
none  of  it.  He  was  a  great,  idle  force.  He  was  an  assassin 
through  coolness.  He  was  thought  to  be  a  Creole.  He  had, 
probably,  somewhat  to  do  with  Marshal  Brune,  having  been  a 
porter  at  Avignon  in  1815.  After  this  stage,  he  had  turned 
ruffian. 

The  diaphaneity  of  Babet  contrasted  with  the  grossness  of 
Gueulemer.  Babet  was  thin  and  learned.  He  was  transparent 
but  impenetrable.  Daylight  was  visible  through  his  bones,  but 
nothing  through  his  eyes.  He  declared  that  he  was  a  chemist. 
He  had  been  a  jack  of  all  trades.  He  had  played  in  vaudeville 
at  Saint-Mihiel.  He  was  a  man  of  purpose,  a  fine  talker,  who 
underlined  his  smiles  and  accentuated  his  gestures.  His  occu- 
pation consisted  in  selling,  in  the  open  air,  plaster  busts  arid 
portraits  of  "the  head  of  the  State."  In  addition  to  this,  he 
extracted  teeth.  He  had  exhibited  phenomena  at  fairs,  and  he 
had  owned  a  booth  with  a  trumpet  and  this  poster:  ''Babet, 
Dent;1.!  Artist,  Member  of  the  Academies,  makes  physical  ex- 
periments on  metals  and  metalloids,  extracts  teeth,  undertakes 
stumps  abandoned  by  his  brother  practitioners.  Price:  one 
tooth,  one  franc,  fifty  centimes ;  two  teeth,  two  francs ;  three 
teeth,  two  francs,  fifty.  Take  advantage  of  this  opportunity." 
This  Take  advantage  of  this  opportunity  meant:  Have  as 
many  teeth  extracted  as  possible.  He  had  been  married  and 
had  had  children.  He  did  not  know  what  had  become  of  his 
wife  and  children.  He  had  lost  them  as  one  loses  his  handker- 


170  MARIU8 

chief.  Babet  read  the  papers,  a  striking  exception  in  the  world 
to  which  he  belonged.  One  day,  at  the  period  when  he  had  his 
family  with  him  in  his  booth  on  wheels,  he  had  read  in  the 
Messager,  that  a  woman  had  just  given  birth  to  a  child,  who 
was  doing  well,  and  had  a  calf's  muzzle,  and  he  exclaimed : 
"There's  a  fortune !  my  wife  has  not  the  wit  to  present  me 
with  a  child  like  that !" 

Later  on  he  had  abandoned  everything,  in  order  to  "under- 
take Paris."  This  was  his  expression. 

Who  was  Claquesous?  He  was  night.  He  waited  until  the 
sky  was  daubed  with  black,  before  he  showed  himself.  At 
nightfall  he  emerged  from  the  hole  whither  he  returned  before 
daylight.  Where  was  this  hole?  No  one  knew.  He  only 
addressed  his  accomplices  in  the  most  absolute  darkness,  and 
with  his  back  turned  to  them.  Was  his  name  Claquesous? 
Certainly  not.  If  a  candle  was  brought,  he  put  on  a  mask. 
He  was  a  ventriloquist.  Babet  said :  "Claquesous  is  a  noc- 
turne for  two  voices."  Claquesous  was  vague,  terrible,  and  a 
roamer.  No  one  was  sure  whether  he  had  a  name,  Claquesous 
being  a  sobriquet;  none  was  sure  that  he  had  a  voice,  as  his 
stomach  spoke  more  frequently  than  his  voice ;  no  one  was  sure 
that  he  had  a  face,  as  he  was  never  seen  without  his  mask.  He 
disappeared  as  though  he  had  vanished  into  thin  air ;  when  he 
appeared,  it  was  as  though  he  sprang  from  the  earth. 

A  lugubrious  being  was  Montparnasse.  Montparnasse  was  a 
child;  less  than  twenty  years  of  age,  with  a  handsome  face, 
lips  like  cherries,  charming  black  hair,  the  brilliant  light  of 
springtime  in  his  eyes;  he  had  all  vices  and  aspired  to  all 
crimes. 

The  digestion  of  evil  aroused  in  him  an  appetite  for  worse. 
It  was  the  street  boy  turned  pickpocket,  and  a  pickpocket 
turned  garroter.  He  was  genteel,  effeminate,  graceful,  robust, 
sluggish,  ferocious.  The  rim  of  his  hat  was  curled  up  on  the 
left  side,  in  order  to  make  room  for  a  tuft  of  hair,  after  the 
style  of  1829.  He  lived  by  robbery  with  violence.  His  coat 
was  of  the  best  cut,  but  threadbare.  Montparnasse  was  a 
fashion-plate  in  misery  and  given  to  the  commission  of  mur- 


PATRON  MINETTE 

ders.  The  cause  of  all  this  youth's  crimes  was  the  desire  to  he 
well-dressed.  The  first  grisette  who  had  said  to  him :  "You 
are  handsome!"  had  cast  the  stain  of  darkness  into  his  heart, 
and  had  made  a  Cain  of  this  Abel.  Finding  that  he  was  hand- 
some, he  desired  to  be  elegant:  now,  the  height  of  elegance  is 
idleness;  idleness  in  a  poor  man  means  crime.  Few  prowlers 
were  so  dreaded  as  Montparnasse.  At  eighteen,  he  had  already 
numerous  corpses  in  his  past.  More  than  one  passer-by  lay 
with  outstretched  arms  in  the  presence  of  this  wretch,  with  his 
face  in  a  pool  of  blood.  Curled,  pomaded,  with  laced  waist, 
the  hips  of  a  woman,  the  bust  of  a  Prussian  officer,  the  murmur 
of  admiration  from  the  boulevard  wenches  surrounding  him, 
his  cravat  knowingly  tied,  a  bludgeon  in  his  pocket,  a  flower 
in  his  buttonhole ;  such  was  this  dandy  of  the  sepulchre. 


CHAPTER    IV 

COMPOSITION    OF   THE    TROUPE 

THESE  four  ruffians  formed  a  sort  of  Proteus,  winding  like 
a  serpent  among  the  police,  and  striving  to  escape  Vidocq's 
indiscreet  glances  "under  divers  forms,  tree,  flame,  fountain," 
lending  each  other  their  names  and  their  traps,  hiding  in  their 
own  shadows,  boxes  with  secret  compartments  and  refuges  for 
each  other,  stripping  off  their  personalities,  as  one  removes  his 
false  nose  at  a  masked  ball,  sometimes  simplifying  matters  to 
the  point  of  consisting  of  but  one  individual,  sometimes  mul- 
tiplying themselves  to  such  a  point  that  Coco-Latour  himself 
took  them  for  a  whole  throng. 

These  four  men  were  not  four  men;  they  were  a  sort  of 
mysterious  robber  with  four  heads,  operating  on  a  grand  scale 
on  Paris ;  they  were  that  monstrous  polyp  of  evil,  which  inhab- 
its the  crypt  of  society. 

Thanks  to  their  ramifications,  and  to  the  network  underly- 
ing their  relations,  Babet,  Gueulemer,  Claquesous,  and  Mont- 
parnasse were  charged  with  the  general  enterprise  of  the 


MARIUS 

ambushes  of  the  department  of  the  Seine.  The  inventors  of 
ideas  of  that  nature,  men  with  nocturnal  imaginations,  applied 
to  them  to  have  their  ideas  executed.  They  furnished  the 
canvas  to  the  four  rascals,  and  the  latter  undertook  the  prep- 
aration of  the  scenery.  They  labored  at  the  stage  setting. 
They  were  always  in  a  condition  to  lend  a  force  proportioned 
and  suitable  to  all  crimes  which  demanded  a  lift  of  the 
shoulder,  and  which  were  sufficiently  lucrative.  When  a  crime 
was  in  quest  of  arms,  they  under-let  their  accomplices.  They 
kept  a  troupe  of  actors  of  the  shadows  at  the  disposition  of  all 
underground  tragedies. 

They  were  in  the  habit  of  assembling  at  nightfall,  the  hour 
when  they  woke  up,  on  the  plains  which  adjoin  the  Salpetriere. 
There  they  held  their  conferences.  They  had  twelve  black 
hours  before  them;  they  regulated  their  employment  accord- 
ingly. 

Patron-Minette, — such  was  the  name  which  was  bestowed 
in  the  subterranean  circulation  on  the  association  of  these  four 
men.  In  the  fantastic,  ancient,  popular  parlance,  which  is 
vanishing  day  by  day,  Patron-Minette  signifies  the  morning, 
the  same  as  entre  chicn  et  loup — between  dog  and  wolf — sig- 
nifies the  evening.  This  appellation,  Patron-Minette,  was 
probably  derived  from  the  hour  at  which  their  work  ended, 
the  dawn  being  the  vanishing  moment  for  phantoms  and  for 
the  separation  of  ruffians.  These  four  men  were  known  under 
this  title.  When  the  President  of  the  Assizes  visited  Lace- 
naire  in  his  prison,  and  questioned  him  concerning  a  misdeed 
which  Lacenaire  denied.  "Who  did  it?"  demanded  the  Presi- 
dent. Lacenaire  made  this  response,  enigmatical  so  far  as 
the  magistrate  was  concerned,  but  clear  to  the  police:  "Per- 
haps it  was  Patron-Minette." 

A  piece  can  sometimes  be  divined  on  the  enunciation  of  the 
personages;  in  the  same  manner  a  band  can  almost  be  judged 
from  the  list  of  ruffians  composing  it.  Here  arc  the  appella- 
tions to  which  the  principal  members  of  Patron-Minette 
answered. — for  the  names  have  survived  in  special  memoirs. 

Pane-baud,  alias  Printanier,  alias  Bigrenaille. 


PATRON  M1NETTE  173 

Brujon.  [There  was  a  Brujon  dynasty ;  we  cannot  refrain 
from  interpolating  this  word.] 

Boulatruelle,  the  road-mender  already  introduced. 

Laveuve. 

Finistere. 

Homere-Hogu,  a  negro. 

Mardisoir.     (Tuesday  evening.) 

Depeche.     (Make  haste.) 

Fauntleroy,  alias  Bouquetiere  (the  Flower  Girl). 

Glorieux,  a  discharged  convict. 

Barrecarrosse  (Stop-carriage),  called  Monsieur  Dupont. 

L'Esplanade-du-Sud. 

Poussagrive. 

Carmagnolet. 

Kruidcniers,  called  Bizarro. 

Mangedentelle.     (Lace-eater.) 

Les-pieds-en-1'Air.     (Feet  in  the  air.) 

Demi-Liard,  called  Deux-Milliards. 

Etc.,  etc. 

We  pass  over  some,  and  not  the  worst  of  them.  These 
names  have  faces  attached.  They  do  not  express  merely 
beings,  but  species.  Each  one  of  these  names  corresponds  to 
a  variety  of  those  misshapen  fungi  from  the  under  side  of 
civilization. 

Those  beings,  who  were  not  very  lavish  with  their  counte- 
nances, were  not  among  the  men  whom  one  sees  passing  along 
the  streets.  Fatigued  by  the  wild  nights  which  they  passed, 
they  went  off  by  day  to  sleep,  sometimes  in  the  lime-kilns, 
sometimes  in  the  abandoned  quarries  of  Montmatre  or  Mont- 
rouge,  sometimes  in  the  sewers.  They  ran  to  earth. 

What  became  of  these  men?  They  still  exist.  They  have 
always  existed.  Horace  speaks  of  them:  Ambubaiarum 
collegia,  pharmacopeia;,  mcndici,  mimcc;  and  so  long  as  society, 
remains  what  it  is,  they  will  remain  what  they  are.  Beneath 
the  obscure  roof  of  their  cavern,  they  are  continually  born 
again  from  the  social  ooze.  They  return,  spectres,  but  always 
identical ;  only,  they  no  longer  bear  the  same  names  and  they 


174  MARWS 

are  no  longer  in  the  same  skins.  The  individuals  extirpated, 
the  tribe  subsists. 

They  always  have  the  same  faculties.  From  the  vagrant  to 
the  tramp,  the  race  is  maintained  in  its  purity.  They  divine 
purses  in  pockets,  they  scent  out  watches  in  fobs.  Gold  and 
silver  possess  an  odor  for  them.  There  exist  ingenuous  bour- 
geois, of  whom  it  might  be  said,  that  they  have  a  "stealable" 
air.  These  men  patiently  pursue  these  bourgeois.  They  ex- 
perience the  quivers  of  a  spider  at  the  passage  of  a  stranger 
or  of  a  man  from  the  country. 

These  men  are  terrible,  when  one  encounters  them,  or 
catches  a  glimpse  of  them,  towards  midnight,  on  a  deserted 
boulevard.  They  do  not  seem  to  be  men,  but  forms  composed 
of  living  mists;  one  would  say  that  they  habitually  constitute 
one  mass  with  the  shadows,  that  they  are  in  no  wise  distinct 
from  them,  that  they  possess  no  other  soul  than  the  darkness, 
and  that  it  is  only  momentarily  and  for  the  purpose  of  living 
for  a  few  minutes  a  monstrous  life,  that  they  have  separated 
from  the  night. 

What  is  necessary  to  cause  these  spectres  to  vanish  ?  Light. 
Light  in  floods.  Not  a  single  bat  can  resist  the  dawn.  Light 
up  society  from  below. 


BOOK  EIGHTH.— THE  WICKED  POOR  MAN 
CHAPTER  I 

MARIUS,  WHILE  SEEKING  A  GIRL  IN  A  BONNET,  ENCOUNTERS  A 
MAN  IN  A  CAP 

SUMMER  passed,  then  the  autumn;  winter  came.  Neither 
M.  Leblanc  nor  the  young  girl  had  again  set  foot  in  the 
Luxembourg  garden.  Thenceforth,  Marius  had  hut  one 
thought, — to  gaze  once  more  on  that  sweet  and  adorable  face. 
He  sought  constantly,  he  sought  everywhere ;  he  found  noth- 
ing. He  was  no  longer  Marius,  the  enthusiastic  dreamer,  the 
firm,  resolute,  ardent  man,  the  bold  defier  of  fate,  the  brain 
which  erected  future  on  future,  the  young  spirit  encumbered 
with  plans,  -with  projects,  with  pride,  with  ideas  and  wishes ; 
he  was  a  lost  dog.  lie  fell  into  a  black  melancholy.  All  was 
over.  Work  disgusted  him,  walking  tired  him.  Vast  nature, 
formerly  so  filled  with  forms,  lights,  voices,  counsels,  per- 
spectives, horizons,  teachings,  now  lay  empty  before  him.  It 
seemed  to  him  that  everything  had  disappeared. 

He  thought  incessantly,  for  he  could  not  do  otherwise ;  but 
he  no  longer  took  pleasure  in  his  thoughts.  To  everything 
that  they  proposed  to  him  in  a  whisper,  he  replied  in  his 
darkness :  "What  is  the  use  ?" 

He  heaped  a  hundred  reproaches  on  himself.  "Why  did  I 
follow  her  ?  I  was  so  happy  at  the  mere  sight  of  her !  She 
looked  at  me;  was  not  that  immense?  She  had  the  air  of 
loving  me.  Was  not  that  everything?  I  wished  to  have, 
what?  There  was  nothing  after  that.  I  have  been  absurd.  It 
is  my  own  fault."  etc.,  etc.  Courfeyrac,  to  whom  he  confided 
nothing, — it  was  his  nature, — but  who  made  some  little  guess 


176  MARIUS 

at  everything, — that  was  his  nature, — had  begun  by  congrat- 
ulating him  on  being  in  love,  though  he  was  amazed  at  it; 
then,  seeing  Marius  fall  into  this  melancholy  state,  he  ended 
by  saying  to  him :  "I  see  that  you  have  been  simply  an 
animal.  Here,  come  to  the  Chaumiere." 

Once,  having  confidence  in  a  fine  September  sun,  Marius 
had  allowed  himself  to  be  taken  to  the  ball  at  Sceaux  by  Cour- 
feyrac,  Bossuet.  and  Grantaire,  hoping,  what  a  dream !  that  he 
might,  perhaps,  find  her  there.  Of  course  he  did  not  see  the 
one  he  sought. — "But  this  is  the  place,  all  the  same,  where  all 
lost  women  are  found,"  grumbled  Grantaire  in  an  aside. 
Marius  left  his  friends  at  the  ball  and  returned  home  on  foot, 
alone,  through  the  night,  weary,  feverish,  with  sad  and 
troubled  eyes,  stunned  by  the  noise  and  dust  of  the  merry 
wagons  filled  with  singing  creatures  on  their  way  home  from 
the  feast,  which  passed  close  to  him,  as  he,  in  his  discourage- 
ment, breathed  in  the  acrid  scent  of  the  walnut-trees,  along 
the  road,  in  order  to  refresh  his  head. 

He  took  to  living  more  and  more  alone,  utterly  over- 
whelmed, wholly  given  up  to  his  inward  anguish,  going  and 
coming  in  his  pain  like  the  wolf  in  the  trap,  seeking  the  absent 
one  everywhere,  stupefied  by  love. 

On  another  occasion,  he  had  an  encounter  which  produced 
on  him  a  singular  effect.  He  met,  in  the  narrow  streets  in  the 
vicinity  of  the  Boulevard  des  Invalidcs,  a  man  dressed  like  a 
workingman  and  wearing  a  cap  with  a  long  visor,  which 
allowed  a  glimpse  of  locks  of  very  white  hair.  Marius  was 
struck  with  the  beauty  of  this  white  hair,  and  scrutunized  the 
man,  who  was  walking  slowly  and  as  though  absorbed  in  pain- 
ful meditation.  Strange  to  say,  he  thought  that  he  recognized 
M.  Leblanc.  The  hair  was  the  same,  also  the  profile,  so  far 
as  the  cap  permitted  a  view  of  it,  the  mien  identical,  only  more 
depressed.  But  why  these  workingman's  clothes?  What  was 
the  meaning  of  this?  What  signified  that  disguise?  Marius 
was  greatly  astonished.  When  he  recovered  himself,  his  first 
impulse  was  to  follow  the  man ;  who  knows  whether  he  did 
not  hold  at  last  the  clue  which  he  was  seeking?  In  any  case, 


THE   WICKED  POOR  MA  A  ^77 

he  must  sec  the  man  near  at  hand,  and  clear  up  the  mystery. 
But  the  idea  occurred  to  him  too  late,  the  man  was  no  longer 
there.  He  had  turned  into  some  little  side  street,  and  Marius 
could  not  find  him.  This  encounter  occupied  his  mind  for 
three  days  and  then  was  effaced.  "After  all,"  he  said  to  him- 
self, "it  was  probably  only  a  resemblance." 


CHAPTER    II 

TREASURE  TROVE 

MARIUS  had  not  left  the  Gorbeau  house.  He  paid  no  atten- 
tion to  any  one  there. 

At  that  epoch,  to  tell  the  truth,  there  were  no  other  inhabi- 
tants in  the  house,  except  himself  and  those  Jondrettes  whose 
rent  he  had  once  paid,  without,  moreover,  ever  having  spoken 
to  either  father,  mother,  or  daughters.  The  other  lodgers  had 
moved  away  or  had  died,  or  had  been  turned  out  in  default  of 
payment. 

One  day  during  that  winter,  the  sun  had  shown  itself  a  little 
in  the  afternoon,  but  it  was  the  3d  of  February,  that  ancient 
Candlemas  day  whose  treacherous  sun,  the  precursor  of  a  six 
weeks'  cold  spell,  inspired  Mathieu  Laensberg  with  these  two 
lines,  which  have  with  justice  remained  classic: — 

Qu'il  luise  ou  qu'il  luiserne, 
L'ours  rentre  dans  en  sa  caverne.1 

Marius  had  just  emerged  from  his:  night  was  falling.  It 
was  the  hour  for  his  dinner:  for  he  had  been  obliged  to  take 
to  dining  again,  alas !  oh,  infirmities  of  ideal  passions ! 

lie  had  just  crossed  his  threshold,  where  Ma'am  Rougon 
was  sweeping  at  the  moment,  as  she  uttered  this  memorable 
monologue : — 

"What  is  there  that  is  cheap  now?     Everything  is  dear. 

'Whether  the  sun  shines  brightly  or  dim.  the  hear  returns  to  his 
cave. 


178  MARIU8 

There  is  nothing  in  the  world  that  is  cheap  except 
trouble;  you  can  get  that  for  nothing,  the  trouble  of  the 
world !" 

Marius  slowly  ascended  the  boulevard  towards  the  barrier, 
in  order  to  reach  the  Rue  Saint-Jacques.  He  was  walking 
along  with  drooping  head. 

All  at  once,  he  felt  some  one  elbow  him  in  the  dusk;  he 
wheeled  round,  and  saw  two  young  girls  clad  in  rags,  the  one 
tall  and  slim,  the  other  a  little  shorter,  who  were  passing 
rapidly,  all  out  of  breath,  in  terror,  and  with  the  appearance 
of  fleeing;  they  had  been  coming  to  meet  him,  bad  not  seen 
him,  and  had  jostled  him  as  they  passed.  Through  the  twi- 
light, Marius  could  distinguish  their  livid  faces,  their  wild 
heads,  their  dishevelled  hair,  their  hideous  bonnets,  their 
ragged  petticoats,  and  their  bare  feet.  They  were  talking  as 
they  ran.  The  taller  said  in  a  very  low  voice : — 

"The  bobbies  have  come.  They  came  near  nabbing  me  at 
the  half-circle."  The  other  answered:  "I  saw  them.  I 
bolted,  bolted,  bolted!" 

Through  this  repulsive  slang,  Marius  understood  that  gen- 
darmes or  the  police  had  come  near  apprehending  these  two 
children,  and  that  the  latter  had  escaped. 

They  plunged  among  the  trees  of  the  boulevard  behind  him, 
and  there  created,  for  a  few  minutes,  in  the  gloom,  a  sort  of 
vague  white  spot,  then  disappeared. 

Marius  had  halted  for  a  moment. 

He  was  about  to  pursue  his  way.  when  his  eye  lighted  on  a 
little  grayish  package  lying  on  the  ground  at  his  foot.  He 
stooped  and  picked  it  up.  It  was  a  sort  of  envelope  which 
appeared  to  contain  papers. 

"Good,"  he  said  to  himself,  "those  unhappy  girls  dropped 
it." 

He  retraced  his  steps,  he  called,  he  did  not  find  them;  he 
reflected  that  they  must  already  be  far  away,  put  the  package 
in  his  pocket,  and  went  off  to  dine. 

On  the  way,  he  saw  in  an  alley  of  the  Rue  Mouffetard,  a 
child's  coffin,  covered  with  a  black  cloth,  resting  on  three 


TUE  WICKED  POOR  MAN  179 

chairs,  and  illuminated  by  a  candle.  The  two  girls  of  the 
twilight  recurred  to  his  mind. 

"Poor  mothers!"  he  thought.  "There  is  one  thing  sadder 
than  to  see  one's  children  die ;  it  is  to  see  them  leading  an  evil 
life." 

Then  those  shadows  which  had  varied  his  melancholy 
vanished  from  his  thoughts,  and  he  fell  back  once  more  into 
his  habitual  preoccupations.  He  fell  to  thinking  once  more 
of  his  six  months  of  love  and  happiness  in  the  open  air  and 
the  broad  daylight,  beneath  the  beautiful  trees  of  Luxem- 
bourg. 

"How  gloomy  my  life  has  become !"  he  said  to  himself. 
"Young  girls  are  always  appearing  to  me,  only  formerly  they 
were  angels  and  now  they  are  ghouls." 


CHAPTER   III 

QUADRIFRONS 

THAT  evening,  as  he  was  undressing  preparatory  to  going 
to  bed,  his  hand  came  in  contact,  in  the  pocket  of  his  coat, 
with  the  packet  which  he  had  picked  up  on  the  boulevard.  He 
had  forgotten  it.  He  thought  that  it  would  be  well  to  open 
it,  and  that  this  package  might  possibly  contain  the  address 
of  the  young  girls,  if  it  really  belonged  to  them,  and,  in  any 
case,  the  information  necessary  to  a  restitution  to  the  person 
who  had  lost  it. 

He  opened  the  envelope. 

It  was  not  sealed,  and  contained  four  letters,  also  unsealed. 

They  bore  addresses. 

All  four  exhaled  a  horrible  odor  of  tobacco. 

The  first  was  addressed:  "To  Madame,  Madame  la  Mar- 
quise dc  Gruchcray,  the  place  opposite  the  Chamber  of  Depu- 
ties, No.—" 

Marius  said  to  himself,  that  he  should  probably  find  in  it 
the  information  which  he  sought,  and  that,  moreover,  the 


MARIUS 

letter  being  open,  it  was  probable  that  it  could  be  read  with- 
out impropriety. 

It  was  conceived  as  follows: — 

MADAME  LA  MARQUISE:  The  virtue  of  clemency  and  piety  is  that 
which  most  closely  unites  sosiety.  Turn  your  Christian  spirit  and 
cast  a  look  of  compassion  on  this  unfortunate  Spanish  victim  of 
loyalty  and  attachment  to  the  sacred  cause  of  legitimacy,  who  has 
given  with  his  blood,  consecrated  his  fortune,  evverything,  to  defer'1 
that  cause,  and  to-day  finds  himself  in  the  greatest  missery.  He 
doubts  not  that  your  honorable  person  will  grant  succor  to  preserve 
an  existence  exteremely  painful  for  a  military  man  of  education  and 
honor  full  of  wounds,  counts  in  advance  on  the  humanity  which  ani- 
mates you  and  on  the  interest  which  Madame  la  Marquise  bears 
to  a  nation  so  unfortunate.  Their  prayer  will  not  be  in  vain,  and 
their  gratitude  will  preserve  theirs  charming  souvenir. 

My  respectful  sentiments,  with  which  I  have  the  honor  to  be 
Madame, 

DON  ALVARfcs,  Spanish  Captain 
of  Cavalry,  a  royalist  who 
has  take  refuge  in  France, 
who  finds  himself  on  travells 
for  his  country,  and  the  re- 
sources are  lacking  him  to 
continue  his  travells. 

No  address  was  joined  to  the  signature.  Marius  hoped  to 
find  the  address  in  the  second  letter,  whose  superscription 
read:  A  Madame,  Madame  la  Comtesse  de  Montvernei,  Rue 
Cassette,  No.  9.  This  is  what  Marius  read  in  it : — 

MADAME  I.A  COMTESSE:  It  is  an  unhappy  mother  of  a  family 
of  six  children  the  last  of  which  is  only  eight  months  old.  I 
sick  since  my  last  confinement,  abandoned  by  my  husband  five 
j::onths  ago,  haveing  no  resources  in  the  world  the  most  frightful 
imligance. 

In  the  hope  of  Madame  la  Comtesse,  she  has  the  honor  to  be, 
Madame,  with  profound  respect, 

MISTRESS  BALLZARD. 

Marius  turned  to  the  third  letter,  which  was  a  petition  like 
the  preceding;  he  read: — 

Monsieur    PABOURGEOT,    Elector,    wholesale    stocking    merchant, 

Rue   Saint-Denis  on  the  corner  of  the   Rue  aux   Fers. 
I    permit   myself  to  address  you   this  letter  to  beg  you  to  grant 
me   the   pretious   favor   of  your   simpatieu   and   to   interest  yourself 


THE  WICKED  POOR  MAN  ]%] 

in  a  man  of  letters  who  has  just  sent  a  drama  to  the  ThCfttre- 
Francais.  The  subject  is  historical,  and  the  action  takes  place 
in  Auvergne  in  the  time  of  the  Empire;  the  style,  I  think,  is 
natural,  laconic,  and  may  have  some  merit.  There  are  couplets 
to  be  sung  in  four  places.  The  comic,  the  serious,  the  unexpected, 
are  mingled  in  a  variety  of  characters,  and  a  tinge  of  romanti- 
cism lightly  spread  through  all  the  intrigue  which  proceeds  mis- 
teriously,  and  ends,  after  striking  altarations,  in  the  midst  of 
many  beautiful  strokes  of  brilliant  scenes. 

My  principal  object  is  to  satisfi  the  desire  which  progressively 
animates  the  man  of  our  century,  that  is  to  say,  the  fashion,  that 
capritious  and  bizarre  weathervane  which  changes  at  almost  every 
new  wind. 

In  spite  of  these  qualities  I  have  reason  to  fear  that  jealousy, 
the  egotism  of  priviliged  authors,  may  obtaine  my  exclusion  from 
the  theatre,  for  I  am  not  ignorant  of  the  mortifications  with  which 
new-comers  are  treated. 

Monsiuer  Pabourgeot,  your  just  reputation  as  an  enlightened 
protector  of  men  of  litters  emboldens  me  to  send  you  my  daughter 
who  will  explain  our  indigant  situation  to  you,  lacking  bread  and 
fire  in  this  \vynter  season.  When  I  say  to  you  that  1  beg  you  to 
accept  the  dedication  of  my  drama  which  J  desire  to  make  to  you 
and  of  all  those  that  I  shall  make,  is  to  prove  to  you  how  great  is 
my  ambition  to  have  the  honor  of  sheltering  myself  under  your 
protection,  and  of  adorning  my  writings  with  your  name.  If  you 
deign  to  honor  me  with  the  most  modest  offering,  I  shall  imme- 
diately occupy  myself  in  making  a  piesse  of  verse  to  pay  you  my 
tribute  of  gratitude.  Which  I  shall  endeavor  to  render  this  piesse 
as  perfect  as  possible,  will  be  sent  to  you  before  it  is  inserted  at 
the  beginning  of  the  drama  and  delivered  on  the  stage. 
To  Monsieur 

and  Madame  PABOUKGEOT, 

My   most    respectful    complements, 

(TENFLOT,   man   of   letters. 

P.  S.    Even  if  it  is  only  forty  sous. 

Excuse  me  for  sending  my  daughter  and  not  presenting  myself, 
but  sad  motives  connected  with  the  toilet  do  not  permit  me,  alas! 
to  go  out. 

Finally,  Marius  opened  the  fourth  letter.  The  address  ran : 
To  the  benevolent  Gentleman  of  the  church  of  Saint-Jacques- 
du-haut-Pas.  It  contained  the  following  lines: — 

BENEVOLENT  MAN:  If  you  deign  to  accompany  my  daughter,  you 
will  behold  a  misserable  calamity,  and  I  will  show  you  my  cer- 
tificates. 

At  the  aspect  of  these  writings  your  generous  soul  will  be 
moved  with  a  sentiment  of  obvious  benevolence,  for  true  philoso- 
phers always  feel  lively  emotions. 


182  MARID8 

Admit,  compassionate  man,  that  it  is  necessary  to  suffer  the 
most  cruel  need,  and  that  it  is  very  painful,  for  the  sake  of  obtain- 
ing a  little  relief,  to  get  oneself  attested  by  the  authorities  as 
though  one  were  not  free  to  suffer  and  to  die  of  inanition  while 
waiting  to  have  our  misery  relieved.  Destinies  arc  very  fatal  for 
several  and  too  prodigal  or  too  protecting  for  others. 

I  await  your  presence  or  your  offering,  if  you  deign  to  make  one, 
and  1  beseech  you  to  accept  the  respectful  sentiments  with  which 
I  have  the  honor  to  be, 

truly    magnanimous   man, 
your  very  humble 
and  very  obedient  servant, 

P.  FABANTOU,  dramatic  artist. 

After  perusing  these  four  letters,  Marius  did  not  find  him- 
self much  further  advanced  than  before. 

In  the  first  place,  not  one  of  the  signers  gave  his  address. 

Then,  they  seemed  to  come  from  four  different  individuals, 
Don  Alveras,  Mistress  Balizard,  the  poet  Genfiot,  and 
dramatic  artist  Fabantou ;  but  the  singular  thing  about  these 
letters  was,  that  all  four  were  written  by  the  same  hand. 

What  conclusion  was  to  be  drawn  from  this,  except  that 
they  all  come  from  the  same  person? 

Moreover,  and  this  rendered  the  conjecture  all  the  more 
probable,  the  coarse  and  yellow  paper  was  the  same  in  all  four, 
the  odor  of  tobacco  was  the  same,  and.  although  an  attempt 
had  boon  made  to  vary  the  style,  the  same  orthographical 
faults  were  reproduced  with  the  greatest  tranquillity,  and  the 
man  of  letters  Genflot  was  no  more  exempt  from  them  than 
the  Spanish  captain. 

It  was  waste  of  trouble  to  try  to  solve  this  petty  mystery. 
Had  it  not  been  a  chance  find,  it  would  have  borne  the  air  of  a 
mystification.  Marius  was  too  melancholy  to  take  even  a 
chance  pleasantry  well,  and  to  lend  himself  to  a  game  which 
the  pavement  of  the  street  seemed  desirous  of  playing  with 
him.  It  seemed  to  him  that  he  was  playing  the  part  of  the 
blind  man  in  blind  man's  buff  between  the  four  letters,  and 
that  they  were  making  sport  of  him. 

Nothing,  however,  indicated  that  these  letters  belonged  to 
the  two  young  girls  whom  Marius  had  met  on  the  boulevard. 
After  all,  they  were  evidently  papers  of  no  value.  Marius 


TtlK  WICKED  POOR  MAN  183 

replaced  them  in  their  envelope,  flung  the  whole  into  a  corner 
and  went  to  bed.  About  seven  o'clock  in  the  morning,  he 
had  just  risen  and  breakfasted,  and  was  trying  to  settle  down 
to  work,  when  there  came  a  soft  knock  at  his  door. 

As  he  owned  nothing,  he  never  locked  his  door,  unless  occa- 
sionally, though  very  rarely,  when  he  was  engaged  in  some 
pressing  work.  Even  when  absent  he  left  his  key  in  the  lock. 
"You  will  be  robbed,"  said  Ma'am  Bougon.  "Of  what?" 
said  Marius.  The  truth  is,  however,  that  he  had,  one  day, 
been  robbed  of  an  old  pair  of  boots,  to  the  great  triumph  of 
Ma'am  Bougon. 

There  came  a  second  knock,  as  gentle  as  the  first. 

"Come  in,"  said  Marius. 

The  door  opened. 

"What  do  you  want,  Ma'am  Bougon?"  asked  Marius,  with- 
out raising  his  eyes  from  the  books  and  manuscripts  on  his 
table. 

A  voice  which  did  not  belong  to  Ma'am  Bougon  replied : — 

"Excuse  me,  sir — 

It  was  a  dull,  broken,  hoarse,  strangled  voice,  the  voice  of 
an  old  man,  roughened  with  brandy  and  liquor. 

Marius  turned  round  hastily,  and  beheld  a  young  girl. 


CHAPTER   IV 

A  ROSE  IN  MISERY 

A  VERY  young  girl  was  standing'  in  the  half-open  door. 
The  dormer  window  of  the  garret,  through  which  the  light 
fell,  was  precisely  opposite  the  door,  and  illuminated  the 
figure  with  a  wan  light.  She  was  a  frail,  emaciated,  slender 
creature;  there  was  nothing  but  a  chemise  and  a  petticoat 
upon  that  chilled  and  shivering  nakedness.  Tier  girdle  was  a 
string,  her  head  ribbon  a  string,  her  pointed  shoulders 
emerged  from  her  chemise,  a  blond  and  lymphatic  pallor, 
earth-colored  collar-bones,  red  hands,  a  half-open  and  d6- 


MARIUS 

graded  mouth,  missing  teeth,  dull,  bold,  base  eyes;  she  had 
the  form  of  a  young  girl  who  has  missed  her  youth,  and  the 
look  of  a  corrupt  old  woman ;  fifty  years  mingled  with  fifteen ; 
one  of  those  beings  which  are  both  feeble  and  horrible,  and 
which  cause  those  to  shudder  whom  they  do  not  cause  to  weep. 

Marius  had  risen,  and  was  staring  in  a  sort  of  stupor  at 
this  being,  who  was  almost  like  the  forms  of  the  shadows 
which  traverse  dreams. 

The  most  heart-breaking  thing  of  all  was,  that  this  young 
girl  had  not  come  into  the  world  to  be  homely.  In  her  early 
childhood  she  must  even  have  been  pretty.  The  grace  of  her 
age  was  still  struggling  against  the  hideous,  premature 
decrepitude  of  debauchery  and  poverty.  The  remains  of 
beauty  were  dying  away  in  that  face  of  sixteen,  like  the  pale 
sunlight  which  is  extinguished  under  hideous  clouds  at  dawn 
on  a  winter's  day. 

That  face  was  not  wholly  unknown  to  Marius.  He  thought 
he  remembered  having  seen  it  somewhere. 

"What  do  you  wish.  Mademoiselle  ?"  he  asked. 

The  young  girl  replied  in  her  voice  of  a  drunken  convict : — 

"Here  is  a  letter  for  you,  Monsieur  Marius." 

She  called  Marius  by  his  name ;  he  could  not  doubt  that  he 
was  the  person  whom  she  wanted;  but  who  was  this  girl? 
How  did  she  know  his  name? 

Without  waiting  for  him  to  tell  her  to  advance,  she  entered. 
She  entered  resolutely,  staring,  with  a  sort  of  assurance  that 
made  the  heart  bleed,  at  the  whole  room  and  the  unmade  bed. 
Her  feet  were  bare.  Large  holes  in  her  petticoat  permitted 
glimpses  of  her  long  legs  and  her  thin  knees.  She  was 
shivering. 

She  held  a  letter  in  her  hand,  which  she  presented  to 
Marius. 

Marius,  as  he  opened  the  letter,  noticed  that  the  enormous 
wafer  which  sealed  it  was  still  moist.  The  message  could  not 
have  come  from  a  distance.  He  read: — 

MY  AMIABLE  NEIGHBOR,  YOUNG  MAN:  I  have  learned  of  your 
goodness  to  me,  that  you  paid  my  rent  six  months  ago.  I  bless 


THE  WICKED  POOR  MAN  185 

you,  young  man.  My  eldest  daughter  will  tell  you  that  we  have 
been  without  a  morsel  of  bread  for  two  days,  four  persons  and  my 
spouse  ill.  If  I  am  not  dcseaved  in  my  opinion,  I  think  I  may  hope 
that  your  generous  heart  will  melt  at  this  statement  and  the 
desire  will  subjugate  you  to  be  propitious  to  me  by  daigning  to 
lavish  on  me  a  slight  favor. 

I  am  with  the  distinguished  consideration  which  is  due  to  the 
benefactors  of  humanity, — 

JONDRETTE. 

P.  S.  My  eldest  daughter  will  await  your  orders,  dear  Monsieur 
Marius. 

This  letter,  coming  in  the  very  midst  of  the  mysterious 
adventure  which  had  occupied  Marius'  thoughts  ever  since  the 
preceding  evening,  was  like  a  candle  in  a  cellar.  All  was 
suddenly  illuminated. 

This  letter  came  from  the  same  place  as  the  other  four. 
There  was  the  same  writing,  the  same  style,  the  same  orthog- 
raphy, the  same  paper,  the  same  odor  of  tobacco. 

There  were  five  missives,  five  histories,  five  signatures,  and 
a  single  signer.  The  Spanish  Captain  Don  Alvares,  the  un- 
happy Mistress  Balizard,  the  dramatic  poet  Genflot,  the  old 
comedian  Fahantou,  were  all  four  named  Jondrette,  if, 
indeed,  Jondrette  himself  were  named  Jondrette. 

Marius  had  lived  in  the  house  for  a  tolerably  long  time, 
and  he  had  had,  as  we  have  said,  but  very  rare  occasion  to 
see,  to  even  catch  a  glimpse  of,  his  extremely  mean  neighbors. 
His  mind  was  elsewhere,  and  where  the  mind  is,  there  the 
eyes  are  also.  He  had  been  obliged  more  than  once  to  pass 
the  Jondrettes  in  the  corridor  or  on  the  stairs ;  but  they  were 
mere  forms  to  him ;  he  had  paid  so  little  heed  to  them,  that, 
on  the  preceding  evening,  he  had  jostled  the  Jondrotte  girls 
on  the  boulevard,  without  recognizing  them,  for  it  had  evi- 
dently been  they,  and  it  was  wiv;h  great  difficulty  that  the  one 
who  had  just  entered  his  room  nad  awakened  in  him,  in  spite 
of  disgust  and  pity,  a  vague  recollection  of  having  met  her 
elsewhere. 

Now  he  saw  everything  cleirly.  He  understood  that  his 
neighbor  Jondrette,  in  his  distress,  exercised  the  industry  of 
speculating  on  the  charity  of  benevolent  persons,  that  he  pro- 


186  MAKIU8 

cured  addresses,  and  that  he  wrote  under  feigned  names  to 
people  whom  he  judged  to  be  wealthy  and  compassionate, 
letters  which  his  daughters  delivered  at  their  risk  and  peril, 
for  this  father  had  come  to  such  a  pass,  that  he  risked  his 
daughters ;  he  was  playing  a  game  with  fate,  and  he  used  them 
as  the  stake.  Marius  understood  that  probably,  judging  from 
their  flight  on  the  evening  before,  from  their  breathless  condi- 
tion, from  their  terror  and  from  the  words  of  slang  which 
he  had  overheard,  these  unfortunate  creatures  were  plying 
some  inexplicably  sad  profession,  and  that  the  result  of  the 
whole  was.  in  the  midst  of  human  society,  as  it  is  now  con- 
stituted, two  miserable  beings  who  were  neither  girls  nor 
women,  a  species  of  impure  and  innocent  monsters  produced 
by  misery. 

Sad  creatures,  without  name,  or  sex,  or  age,  to  whom  neither 
good  nor  evil  were  any  longer  possible,  and  who,  on  emerging 
from  childhood,  have  already  nothing  in  this  world,  neither 
liberty,  nor  virtue,  nor  responsibility.  Souls  which  blossomed 
out  yesterday,  and  are  faded  to-day,  like  those  flowers  let  fall 
in  the  streets,  which  are  soiled  with  every  sort  of  mire,  while 
waiting  for  some  wheel  to  crush  them.  Nevertheless,  while 
Marius  bent  a  pained  and  astonished  gaze  on  her,  the  young 
girl  was  wandering  back  and  forth  in  the  garret  with  the 
audacity  of  a  spectre.  She  kicked  about,  without  troubling 
herself  as  to  her  nakedness.  Occasionally  her  chemise,  which 
was  untied  and  torn,  fell  almost  to  her  waist.  She  moved  the 
chairs  about,  she  disarranged  the  toilet  articles  which  stood 
on  the  commode,  she  handled  Marius'  clothes,  she  rummaged 
about  to  see  what  there  was  in  the  corners. 

"Hullo  !"  said  she,  "you  have  a  mirror !" 

And  she  hummed  scraps  of  vaudevilles,  as  though  she  had 
been  alone,  frolicsome  refrains  which  her  hoarse  and  guttural 
voice  rendered  lugubrious. 

An  indescribable  constraint,  weariness,  and  humiliation 
were  perceptible  beneath  this  hardihood.  Effrontery  is  a 
disgrace. 

Nothing  could  be  more  melancholy  than  to  see  her  sport 


HULLO'         SAID     SHE,     "YOU     HAVE     A     M  RROR  ' 


TEE  WICKED  POOR  MAN  }g7 

about  the  room,  and,  so  to  speak,  flit  with  the  movements  of  a 
bird  which  is  frightened  by  the  daylight,  or  which  has  broken 
its  wing.  One  felt  that  under  other  conditions  of  education 
and  destiny,  the  gay  and  over-free  mien  of  this  young  girl 
might  have  turned  out  sweet  and  charming.  Never,  even 
among  animals,  does  the  creature  born  to  be  a  dove  change 
into  an  osprey.  That  is  only  to  be  seen  among  men. 

Marius  reflected,  and  allowed  her  to  have  her  way. 

She  approached  the  table. 

"Ah  !"  said  she,  "books  !" 

A  flash  pierced  her  glassy  eye.  She  resumed,  and  her  accent 
expressed  the  happiness  which  she  felt  in  boasting  of  some- 
thing, to  which  no  human  creature  is  insensible : — 

"I  know  how  to  read,  I  do !" 

She  eagerly  seized  a  book  which  lay  open  on  the  table,  and 
read  with  tolerable  fluency: — 

" — General  Bauduin  received  orders  to  take  the  chateau  of 
Hougomont  which  stands  in  the  middle  of  the  plain  of  Water- 
loo, with  five  battalions  of  his  brigade." 

She  paused. 

"Ah  !  Waterloo  !  I  know  about  that.  It  was  a  battle  long 
ago.  My  father  was  there.  My  father  has  served  in  the 
armies.  We  are  fine  Bonapartists  in  our  house,  that  we  are ! 
Waterloo  was  against  the  English." 

She  laid  down  the  book,  caught  up  a  pen,  and  exclaimed: — 

"And  I  know  how  to  write,  too !" 

She  dipped  her  pen  in  the  ink,  and  turning  to  Marius: — 

"Do  you  want  to  see?  Look  here,  I'm  going  to  write  a 
word  to  show  you." 

And  before  he  had  time  to  answer,  she  wrote  on  a  sheet  of 
white  paper,  which  lay  in  the  middle  of  the  table :  "The  bob- 
bies are  here." 

Then  throwing  down  the  pen: — 

"There  are  no  faults  of  orthography.  You  can  look.  We 
have  received  an  education,  my  sister  and  I.  We  have  not 
always  been  as  we  are  now.  We  were  not  made — 

Here  she  paused,  fixed  her  dull  eyes  on  Marius,  and  burst 


1SS  MARIUS 

out   laughing,   saying,   with   an   intonation   which   contained 
every  form  of  anguish,  stifled  by  every  form  of  cynicism: — 

"Bah !" 
And  she  began  to  hum  these  words  to  a  gay  air : — 

"J'ai  faim,  mon  pere.  "I  am  hungry,  father. 

Pas  dc  fricot.  I  have   no   food. 

J'ai  froid,  ma  mere.  I  am  cold,  mother. 

Pas  dc  tricot.  I  have  no  clothes. 

Grelotte,  Lolotte! 

Lololtc!  Shiver, 

Santflote,  Sob, 

Jacquot!"  Jacquot!" 

She  had  hardly  finished  this  couplet,  when  she  ex- 
exclaimed  : — 

"Do  you  ever  go  to  the  play,  Monsieur  Marius?  I  do.  I 
have  a  little  brother  who  is  a  friend  of  the  artists,  and  who 
gives  me  tickets  sometimes.  But  I  don't  like  the  benches  in 
the  galleries.  One  is  cramped  and  uncomfortable  there. 
There  are  rough  people  there  sometimes;  and  people  who 
smell  bad." 

Then  she  scrutinized  Marius,  assumed  a  singular  air  and 
said : — 

"Do  you  know,  Mr.  Marius,  that  you  are  a  very  handsome 
fellow  ?" 

And  at  the  same  moment  the  same  idea  occurred  to  them 
both,  and  made  her  smile  and  him  blush.  She  stepped  up  to 
him,  and  laid  her  hand  on  his  shoulder:  "You  pay  no  heed 
to  me,  but  I  know  you,  Mr.  Marius.  I  meet  you  here  on  the 
staircase,  and  then  I  often  see  you  going  to  a  person  named 
Father  Mabeuf  who  lives  in  the  direction  of  Austerlitz,  some- 
times when  I  have  been  strolling  in  that  quarter.  It  is  very 
becoming  to  you  to  have  your  hair  tumbled  thus." 

She  tried  to  render  her  voice  soft,  but  only  succeeded  in 
making  it  very  deep.  A  portion  of  her  words  was  lost  in  the 
transit  from  her  larynx  to  her  lips,  as  though  on  a  piano  where 
some  notes  are  missing. 

Marius  had  retreated  gently. 


THE  WICKED  POOR  MAN 

"Mademoiselle,"  said  he,  with  his  cool  gravity,  "I  have  hero 
a  package  which  belongs  to  you,  I  think.  Permit  me  to  return 
it  to  you." 

And  lie  held  out  the  envelope  containing  the  four  letters. 

She  clapped  her  hands  and  exclaimed: — 

"We  have  been  looking  everywhere  for  that!" 

Then  she  eagerly  seized  the  package  and  opened  the  envel- 
ope, saying  as  she  did  so: — 

"Dieu  de  Dieu !  how  my  sister  and  I  have  hunted!  And  it 
was  you  who  found  it!  On  the  boulevard,  wa.s  it  not?  It 
must  have  been  on  the  boulevard?  You  see,  we  let  it  fall 
when  we  were  running.  It  was  that  brat  of  a  sister  of  mine 
who  was  so  stupid.  "When  we  got  home,  we  could  not  find  it 
anywhere.  As  we  did  not  wish  to  be  beaten,  as  that  is  useless, 
as  that  is  entirely  useless,  as  that  is  absolutely  useless,  we  said 
that  we  had  carried  the  letters  to  the  proper  persons,  and  that 
they  had  said  to  us :  'Nix.'  So  here  they  are,  those  poor 
letters!  And  how  did  you  find  out  that  they  belonged  to 
me?  Ah!  yes,  the  writing.  So  it  was  you  that  we  jostled 
as  we  passed  last  night.  We  couldn't  see.  I  said  to  my  sister : 
'Is  it  a  gentleman?'  My  sister  said  to  me:  'I  think  it  is 
a  gentleman.' " 

In  the  meanwhile,  she  had  unfolded  the  petition  addressed 
to  "the  benevolent  gentleman  of  the  church  of  Saint- Jacques- 
du-Haut-Pas." 

"Here!"  said  she,  "this  is  for  that  old  fellow  who  goes  to 
mass.  By  the  way,  this  is  his  hour.  I'll  go  and  carry  it  to 
him.  Perhaps  he  will  give  us  something  to  break  fa. -4  on." 

Then  she  began  to  laugh  again,  and  added : — 

"Do  you  know  what  it  will  mean  if  we  get  a  breakfast  to- 
day? It  will  mean  that  we  shall  have  had  our  breakfast  of  the 
day  before  yesterday,  our  breakfast  of  yesterday,  our  dinner  of 
to-day,  and  all  that  at  once,  and  this  morning.  Come !  Par- 
bleu !  if  you  are  not  satisfied,  dogs,  burst !" 

This  reminded  Marius  of  the  wretched  girl's  errand  to  him- 
self. He  fumbled  in  his  waistcoat  pocket,  and  found  nothing 
there. 


190  UARIUB 

The  young  girl  went  on,  and  seemed  to  have  no  consciousness 
of  Marius'  presence. 

'•'I  often  go  off  in  the  evening.  Sometimes  I  don't  come 
home  again.  Last  winter,  before  we  came  here,  we  lived  under 
the  arches  of  the  bridges.  We  huddled  together  to  keep  from 
freezing.  My  little  sister  cried.  How  melancholy  the  water 
is !  When  I  thought  of  drowning  myself,  I  said  to  myself : 
'No,  it's  too  cold.'  I  go  out  alone,  whenever  I  choose,  I  some- 
times sleep  in  the  ditches.  Do  you  know,  at  night,  when  I 
walk  along  the  boulevard,  I  see  the  trees  like  forks,  I  see 
houses,  all  black  and  as  big  as  Notre  Dame,  I  fancy  that  the 
white  walls  are  the  river,  I  say  to  myself :  'Why,  there's  water 
there!'  The  stars  are  like  the  lamps  in  illuminations,  one 
would  say  that  they  smoked  and  that  the  wind  blew  them  out, 
I  am  bewildered,  as  though  horses  were  breathing  in  my  ears ; 
although  it  is  night,  I  hear  hand-organs  and  spinning-ma- 
chines, and  I  don't  know  what  all.  I  think  people  are  flinging 
stones  at  me,  I  flee  without  knowing  whither,  everything  whirls 
and  whirls.  You  feel  very  queer  when  you  have  had  no  food." 

And  then  she  stared  at  him  with  a  bewildered  air. 

By  dint  of  searching  and  ransacking  his  pockets,  Marius  had 
finally  collected  five  francs  sixteen  sous.  This  was  all  he 
owned  in  the  world  for  the  moment.  "At  all  events,"  he 
thought,  "there  is  my  dinner  for  to-day,  and  to-morrow  we  will 
see."  He  kept  the  sixteen  sous,  and  handed  the  five  francs  to 
the  young  girl. 

She  seized  the  coin. 

"Good  !"  said  she,  "the  sun  is  shining !" 

And,  as  though  the  sun  had  possessed  the  property  of  melt- 
ing the  avalanches  of  slang  in  her  brain,  she  went  on : — 

"Five  francs!  the  shiner!  a  monarch!  in  this  hole!  Ain't 
this  fine!  You're  a  jolly  thief!  I'm  your  humble  servant! 
Bravo  for  the  good  fellows !  Two  days'  wine !  and  meat !  and 
stew !  we'll  have  a  royal  feast !  and  a  good  fill !" 

She  pulled  her  chemise  up  on  her  shoulders,  made  a  low  bow 
to  Marius,  then  a  familiar  sign  with  her  hand,  and  went  to- 
wards the  door,  saying : — 


THE  WICKED  POOR  MAX  191 

"Good  morning,  sir.  It's  all  right.  I'll  go  and  find  my  old 
man." 

As  she  passed,  she  caught  sight  of  a  dry  crust  of  bread  on 
the  commode,  which  was  moulding  there  amid  the  dust;  she 
flung  herself  upon  it  and  bit  into  it,  muttering : — 

"That's  good !  it's  hard !  it  breaks  my  teeth !" 

Then  she  departed. 


CHAPTER   V 

A   PROVIDENTIAL    PEEP-HOLE 

MARIUS  had  lived  for  five  years  in  poverty,  in  destitution, 
even  in  distress,  but  he  now  perceived  that  he  had  not  known 
real  misery.  True  misery  he  had  but  just  had  a  view  of.  It 
was  its  spectre  which  had  just  passed  before  his  eyes.  In  fact, 
he  who  has  only  beheld  the  misery  of  man  has  seen  nothing; 
the  misery  of  woman  is  what  he  must  see;  he  who  has  seen 
only  the  misery  of  woman  has  seen  nothing;  he  must  see  the 
misery  of  the  child. 

When  a  man  has  reached  his  last  extremity,  he  has  reached 
his  last  resources  at  the  same  time.  Woe  to  the  defenceless 
beings  who  surround  him !  Work,  wages,  bread,  fire,  courage, 
good  will,  all  fail  him  simultaneously.  The  light  of  day  seems 
extinguished  without,  the  moral  light  within;  in  these  shadows 
man  encounters  the  feebleness  of  the  woman  and  the  child,  and 
bends  them  violently  to  ignominy. 

Then  all  horrors  become  possible.  Despair  is  surrounded 
with  fragile  partitions  which  all  open  on  either  vice  or 
crime. 

Health,  youth,  honor,  all  the  shy  delicacies  of  the  young 
body,  the  heart,  virginity,  modesty,  that  epidermis  of  the  soul, 
are  manipulated  in  sinister  wise  by  that  fumbling  which  seeks 
resources,  which  encounters  opprobrium,  and  which  accomo- 
dates  itself  to  it.  Fathers,  mothers,  children,  brothers,  sisters. 
men,  women,  daughters,  adhere  and  become  incorporated, 


192  MARIUS 

almost  like  a  mineral  formation,  in  that  dusky  promiscuous- 
ness  of  sexes,  relationships,  ages,  infamies,  and  innocences. 
They  crouch,  back  to  back,  in  a  sort  of  hut  of  fate.  They 
exchange  woe-begone  glances.  Oh,  the  unfortunate  wretches  I 
How  pale  they  are !  How  cold  they  are !  It  seems  as  though 
they  dwelt  in  a  planet  much  further  from  the  sun  than 
ours. 

This  young  girl  was  to  Marius  a  sort  of  messenger  from  the 
realm  of  sad  shadows.  She  revealed  to  him  a  hideous  side  of 
the  night. 

Marius  almost  reproached  himself  for  the  preoccupations  of 
revery  and  passion  which  had  prevented  his  bestowing  a  glance 
on  his  neighbors  up  to  that  day.  The  payment  of  their  rent 
had  been  a  mechanical  movement,  which  any  one  would  have 
yielded  to ;  but  he,  Marius,  should  have  done  better  than  that. 
What !  only  a  wall  separated  him  from  those  abandoned  beings 
who  lived  gropingly  in  the  dark  outside  the  pale  of  the  rest  of 
the  world,  he  was  elbow  to  elbow  with  them,  he  was,  in  some 
sort,  the  last  link  of  the  human  race  which  they  touched,  he 
heard  them  live,  or  rather,  rattle  in  the  death  agony  beside 
him,  and  he  paid  no  heed  to  them !  Every  day,  every  instant, 
he  heard  them  walking  on  the  other  side  of  the  wall,  he  heard 
them  go,  and  come,  and  speak,  and  he  did  not  even  lend  an 
ear !  And  groans  lay  in  those  words,  and  he  did  not  even 
listen  to  them,  his  thoughts  were  elsewhere,  given  up  to 
dreams,  to  impossible  radiances,  to  loves  in  the  air,  to  follies; 
and  all  the  while,  human  creatures,  his  brothers  in  Jesus 
Christ,  his  brothers  in  the  people,  were  agonizing  in  vain  be- 
side him !  He  even  formed  a  part  of  their  misfortune,  and  he 
aggravated  it.  For  if  they  had  had  another  neighbor  who  was 
less  chimerical  and  more  attentive,  any  ordinary  and  charitable 
man,  evidently  their  indigence  would  have  been  noticed,  their 
signals  of  distress  would  have  been  perceived,  and  they  would 
have  been  taken  hold  of  and  rescued !  They  appeared  very 
corrupt  and  very  depraved,  no  doubt,  very  vile,  very  odious 
even ;  but  those  who  fall  without  becoming  degraded  are  rare; 
besides,  there  is  a  point  where  the  unfortunate  and  the  in- 


THE  WICKED  POOR  MAN 

famous  unite  and  are  confounded  in  a  single  word,  a  fatal 
word,  the  miserable;  whose  fault  is  this?  And  then  should  not 
the  charity  be  all  the  more  profound,  in  proportion  as  the  fall 
is  great? 

While  reading  himself  this  moral  lesson,  for  there  were  occa- 
sions on  which  Marius,  like  all  truly  honest  hearts,  was  his  own 
pedagogue  and  scolded  himself  more  than  he  deserved,  he 
stared  at  the  wall  which  separated  him  from  the  Jondrettes,  as 
though  he  were  ahle  to  make  his  gaze,  full  of  pity,  penetrate 
that  partition  and  warm  these  wretched  people.  The  wall  wat; 
a  thin  layer  of  plaster  upheld  by  lathes  and  beams,  and,  as  the 
reader  had  just  learned,  it  allowed  the  sound  of  voices  and 
words  to  be  clearly  distinguished.  Only  a  man  as  dreamy  as 
Marius  could  have  failed  to  perceive  this  long  before.  There 
was  no  paper  pasted  on  the  wall,  either  on  the  side  of  the 
Jondrettes  or  on  that  of  Marius;  the  coarse  construction  was 
visible  in  its  nakedness.  Marius  examined  the  partition,  al- 
most unconsciously;  sometimes  revery  examines,  observes,  and 
scrutinizes  as  thought  would.  All  at  once  he  sprang  up;  he 
had  just  perceived,  near  the  top,  close  to  the  ceiling,  a  triangu- 
lar hole,  which  resulted  from  the  space  between  three  lathes. 
The  plaster. which  should  have  filled  this  cavity  was  missing, 
and  by  mounting  on  the  commode,  a  view  could  be  had  through 
this  aperture  into  the  Jondrettes'  attic.  Commiseration  has, 
and  should  have,  its  curiosity.  This  aperture  formed  a  sort  of 
peep-hole.  It  is  permissible  to  gaze  at  misfortune  like  a  trai mi- 
ni order  to  succor  it.1 

"Let  us  get  some  little  idea  of  what  these  people  are  like," 
thought  Marius,  "and  in  what  condition  they  are." 

.lie  climbed  upon  the  commode,  put  his  eye  to  the  crevice, 
and  looked. 

'Tlio  peep-hole  is  11  Judas  in  French.  Hence  the  half-punning 
allusion. 


194:  MARIUS 


CHAPTER    VI 

THE    WILD    MAN    IN    HIS   LAIR 

CITIES,  like  forests,  have  their  caverns  in  which  all  the  most 
wicked  and  formidable  creatures  which  they  contain  conceal 
themselves.  Only,  in  cities,  that  which  thus  conceals  itself  is 
ferocious,  unclean,  and  petty,  that  is  to  say,  ugly;  in  forests, 
that  which  conceals  itself  is  ferocious,  savage,  and  grand,  that 
is  to  say,  beautiful.  Taking  one  1air  with  another,  the  beast's 
is  preferable  to  the  man's.  Caverns  are  better  than  hovels. 

What  Marius  now  beheld  was  a  hovel. 

Marius  was  poor,  and  his  chamber  was  poverty-stricken,  but 
as  his  poverty  was  noble,  his  garret  was  neat.  The  den  upon 
which  his  eye  now  rested  was  abject,  dirty,  fetid,  pestiferous, 
mean,  sordid.  The  only  furniture  consisted  of  a  straw  chair,  an 
infirm  table,  some  old  bits  of  crockery,  and  in  two  of  the  cor- 
ners, two  indescribable  pallets;  all  the  light  was  furnishd  by 
a  dormer  window  of  four  panes,  draped  with  spiders'  webs. 
Through  this  aperture  there  penetrated  just  enough  light  to 
make  the  face  of  a  man  appear  like  the  face  of  a  phantom. 
The  walls  had  a  leprous  aspect,  and  were  covered  with  seams 
and  scars,  like  a  visage  disfigured  by  some  horrible  malady ;  a 
repulsive  moisture  exuded  from  them.  Obscene  sketches 
roughly  sketched  with  charcoal  could  be  distinguished  upon 
them. 

The  chamber  which  Marius  occupied  had  a  dilapidated  brick 
pavement;  this  one  was  neither  tiled  nor  planked;  its  inhab- 
itants stepped  directly  on  the  antique  plaster  of  the  hovel, 
which  had  grown  black  under  the  long-continued  pressure  of 
feet.  Upon  this  uneven  floor,  where  the  dirt  seemed  to  be 
fairly  incrustcd,  and  which  possessed  but  one  virginity,  that  of 
the  broom,  were  capriciously  grouped  constellations  of  old 
shoes,  socks,  and  repulsive  rags ;  however,  this  room  had  a  fire- 
place, so  it  was  let  for  forty  francs  a  year.  There  was  every 
sort  of  thing  in  that  fireplace,  a  brazier,  a  pot,  broken  boards. 


THE  WICKED  POOR  MAX  195 

rags  suspended  from  nails,  a  bird-cage,  ashes,  and  even  a 
little  fire.  Two  brands  were  smouldering  there  in  a  melan- 
choly way. 

One  thing  which  added  still  more  to  the  horrors  of  this  gar- 
ret was,  that  it  was  large.  It  had  projections  and  angles  and 
black  holes,  the  lower  sides  of  roofs,  bays,  and  promontories. 
Hence  horrible,  unfathomable  nooks  where  it  seemed  as  though 
spiders  as  big  as  one's  fist,  wood-lice  as  large  as  one's  foot,  and 
perhaps  even — who  knows? — some  monstrous  human  beings, 
must  be  hiding. 

One  of  the  pallets  was  near  the  door,  the  other  near  the  win- 
dow. One  end  of  each  touched  the  fireplace  and  faced  Marius. 
In  a  corner  near  the  aperture  through  which  Marius  was  gaz- 
ing, a  colored  engraving  in  a  black  frame  was  suspended  to  a 
nail  on  the  wall,  and  at  its  bottom,  in  large  letters,  was  the 
inscription:  THE  DREAM.  This  represented  a  sleeping 
woman,  and  a  child,  also  asleep,  the  child  on  the  woman's  lap, 
an  eagle  in  a  cloud,  with  a  crown  in  his  beak,  and  the  woman 
thrusting  the  crown  away  from  the  child's  head,  without  awak- 
ing the  latter ;  in  the  background,  Napoleon  in  a  glory,  leaning 
on  a  very  blue  column  with  a  yellow  capital  ornamented  with 
this  inscription: 

MARINGO 
AUSTERLITS 

IENA 

WAQRAMME 
ELOT 

Beneath  this  frame,  a  sort  of  wooden  panel,  which  was  no 
longer  than  it  was  broad,  stood  on  the  ground  and  rested  in  a 
sloping  attitude  against  the  wall.  It  had  the  appearance  of  a 
picture  with  its  face  turned  to  the  wall,  of  a  frame  probably 
showing  a  daub  on  the  other  side,  of  some  pier-glass  detached 
from  a  wall  and  lying  forgotten  there  while  waiting  to  be 
rehung. 

Near  the  table,  upon  which  Marius  descried  a  pen,  ink,  and 
paper,  sat  a  man  about  sixty  years  of  age,  small,  thin,  livid. 


MARIU8 

haggard,  with  a  cunning,  cruel,  and  uneasy  air;  a  hideous 
scoundrel. 

If  Lavater  had  studied  this  visage,  he  would  have  found  the 
vulture  mingled  with  the  attorney  there,  the  bird  of  prey  and 
the  pettifogger  rendering  each  other  mutually  hideous  and 
complementing  each  other;  the  pettifogger  making  the  bird  of 
prey  ignoble,  the  bird  of  prey  making  the  pettifogger  horrible. 

This  man  had  a  long  gray  beard.  He  was  clad  in  a  woman's 
chemise,  which  allowed  his  hairy  breast  and  his  bare  arms, 
bristling  with  gray  hair,  to  be  seen.  Beneath  this  chemise, 
muddy  trousers  and  boots  through  which  his  toes  projected 
were  visible. 

He  had  a  pipe  in  his  mouth  and  was  smoking.  There  was 
no  bread  in  the  hovel,  but  there  was  still  tobacco. 

He  was  writing  probably  some  more  letters  like  those  which 
Marius  had  read. 

On  the  corner  of  the  table  lay  an  ancient,  dilapidated,  red- 
dish volume,  and  the  size,  which  was  the  antique  12mo  of  read- 
ing-rooms, betrayed  a  romance.  On  the  cover  sprawled  the  fol- 
lowing title,  printed  in  large  capitals:  GOD;  THE  KING; 
HONOR  AND  THE  LADIES;  BY  DUCRAY  DUMINIL, 
1814. 

As  the  man  wrote,  he  talked  aloud,  and  Marius  heard  his 
words : — 

"The  idea  that  there  is  no  equality,  even  when  you  are  dead  ! 
Just  look  at  Pere  Lachaise !  The  great,  those  who  are  rich,  are 
up  above,  in  the  acacia  alley,  which  is  paved.  They  can  reach 
it  in  a  carriage.  The  little  people,  the  poor,  the  unhappy,  well, 
what  of  them  ?  they  are  put  down  below,  where  the  mud  is  up 
to  your  knees,  in  the  damp  places.  They  are  put  there  so  that 
they  will  decay  the  sooner !  You  cannot  go  to  see  them  with- 
out sinking  into  the  earth." 

He  paused,  smote  the  table  with  his  fist,  and  added,  as  he 
ground  his  teeth : — 

"Oh  !  I  could  eat  the  whole  world  !" 

A  big  woman,  who  might  be  forty  years  of  age,  or  a  hundred, 
was  crouching  near  the  fireplace  on  her  bare  heels. 


THE  WICKED  POOR  MAX  -|f)7 

She,  too,  was  clad  only  in  a  chemise  and  a  knitted  petticoat 
patched  with  hits  of  old  cloth.  A  coarse  linen  apron  concealed 
the  half  of  her  petticoat.  Although  this  woman  was  doubled 
up  and  bent  together,  it  could  he  seen  that  she  was  of  very 
lofty  stature.  She  was  a  sort  of  giant,  beside  her  husband. 
She  had  hideous  hair,  of  a  reddish  blond  which  was  turning 
gray,  and  which  she  thrust  back  from  time  to  time,  with  her 
enormous  shining  hands,  with  their  flat  nails. 

Beside  her,  on  the  floor,  wide  open,  lay  a  book  of  the  same 
form  as  the  other,  and  probably  a  volume  of  the  same  romance. 

On  one  of  the  pallets,  Marius  caught  a  glimpse  of  a  sort  of 
tall  pale  young  girl,  who  sat  there  half  naked  and  with  pendant 
feet,  and  who  did  not  seem  to  be  listening  or  seeing  or  living. 

No  doubt  the  younger  sister  of  the  one  who  had  come  to  his 
room. 

She  seemed  to  be  eleven  or  twelve  years  of  age.  On  closer 
scrutiny  it  was  evident  that  she  really  was  fourteen.  She  was 
the  child  who  had  said,  on  the  boulevard  the  evening  before : 
"I  bolted,  bolted,  bolted !" 

She  was  of  that  puny  sort  which  remains  backward  for  a 
long  time,  then  suddenly  starts  up  rapidly.  It  is  indigence 
which  produces  these  melancholy  human  plants.  These  crea- 
tures have  neither  childhood  nor  youth.  At  fifteen  years  of 
age  they  appear  to  be  twelve,  at  sixteen  they  seem  twenty. 
To-day  a  little  girl,  to-morrow  a  woman.  One  might  say  that 
they  stride  through  life,  in  order  to  get  through  with  it  the 
more  speedily. 

At  this  moment,  this  being  had  the  air  of  a  child. 

Moreover,  no  trace  of  work  was  revealed  in  that  dwelling; 
no  handicraft,  no  spinning-wheel,  not  a  tool.  In  one  corner 
lay  some  ironmongery  of  dubious  aspect.  It  was  the  dull 
listlessness  which  follows  despair  and  precedes  the  death 
agony. 

Marius  gazed  for  a  while  at  this  gloomy  interior,  more 
terrifying  than  the  interior  of  a  tomb,  for  the  human  soul 
could  be  felt  fluttering  there,  and  life  was  palpitating  there. 
The  garret,  the  cellar,  the  lowly  ditch  where  certain  indigent 


198  MARIU8 

wretches  crawl  at  the  very  bottom  of  the  social  edifice,  is  not 
exactly  the  sepulchre,  but  only  its  antechamber ;  but,  as  the 
wealthy  display  their  greatest  magnificence  at  the  entrance 
of  their  palaces,  it  seems  that  death,  which  stands  directly 
side  by  side  with  them,  places  its  greatest  miseries  in  that 
vestibule. 

The  man  held  his  peace,  the  woman  spoke  no  word,  the 
young  girl  did  not  even  seem  to  breathe.  The  scratching  of 
the  pen  on  the  paper  was  audible. 

The  man  grumbled,  without  pausing  in  his  writing.  "Ca- 
naille !  canaille  !  everybody  is  canaille  !" 

This  variation  to  Solomon's  exclamation  elicited  a  sigh 
from  the  woman. 

"Calm  yourself,  my  little  friend,"  she  said.  "Don't  hurt 
yourself,  my  dear.  You  are  too  good  to  write  to  all  those 
people,  husband." 

Bodies  press  close  to  each  other  in  misery,  as  in  cold,  but 
hearts  draw  apart.  This  woman  must  have  loved  this  man, 
to  all  appearance,  judging  from  the  amount  of  love  within 
her;  but  probably,  in  the  daily  and  reciprocal  reproaches  of 
the  horrible  distress  which  weighed  on  the  whole  group,  this 
had  become  extinct.  There  no  longer  existed  in  her  anything 
more  than  the  ashes  of  affection  for  her  husband.  Neverthe- 
less, caressing  appellations  had  survived,  as  is  often  the  case. 
She  called  him :  My  dear,  my  little  friend,  my  good  man,  etc., 
with  her  mouth  while  her  heart  was  silent. 

The  man  resumed  his  writing. 


CHAPTER  VII 

STRATEGY  AND  TACTICS 

MARIUS,  with  a  load  upon  his  breast,  was  on  the  point  of 
descending  from  the  species  of  observatory  which  he  had 
improvised,  when  a  sound  attracted  his  attention  and  caused 
him  to  remain  at  his  post. 


THE  WICKED  POOR  MAN  199 

The  door  of  the  attic  had  just  burst  open  abruptly.  The 
eldest  girl  made  her  appearance  on  the  threshold.  On  her  feet, 
she  had  large,  coarse,  men's  shoes,  bespattered  with  mud, 
which  had  splashed  even  to  her  red  ankles,  and  she  was 
wrapped  in  an  old  mantle  which  hung  in  tatters.  Marius  had 
not  seen  it  on  her  an  hour  previously,  but  she  had  probably 
deposited  it  at  his  door,  in  order  that  she  might  inspire  the 
more  pity,  and  had  picked  it  up  again  on  emerging.  She 
entered,  pushed  the  door  to  behind  her,  paused  to  take  breath, 
for  she  was  completely  breathless,  then  exclaimed  with  an 
expression  of  triumph  and  joy : — 

"He  is  coming!" 

The  father  turned  his  eyes  towards  her,  the  woman  turned 
her  head,  the  little  sister  did  not  stir. 

"Who?"  demanded  her  father. 

"The  gentleman !" 

"The  philanthropist  ?" 

"Yes." 

"From  the  church  of  Saint- Jacques  ?" 

"Yes." 

"That  old  fellow?" 

"Yes." 

"And  he  is  coming?" 

"He  is  following  me." 

"You  are  sure?" 

"I  am  sure." 

"There,  truly,  he  is  coming?" 

"He  is  coming  in  a  fiacre." 

"In  a  fiacre.     He  is  Rothschild." 

The  father  rose. 

"How  are  you  sure?  If  he  is  coming  in  a  fiacre,  how  is  it 
that  you  arrive  before  him?  You  gave  him  our  address  at 
least  ?  Did  you  tell  him  that  it  was  the  last  door  at  the  end  of 
the  corridor,  on  the  right?  If  he  only  does  not  make  a  mis- 
take I  So  you  found  him  at  the  church  ?  Did  he  read  my 
letter?  What  did  he  say  to  you?" 

"Ta,  ta,  ta,"  said  the  girl,  "how  you  do  gallop  on,  my  good 


200  MARIU8 

man !  See  here :  I  entered  the  church,  he  was  in  his  usual 
place,  I  made  him  a  reverence,  and  I  handed  him  the  letter;  he 
read  it  and  said  to  me :  'Where  do  you  live,  my  child  ?'  I  said : 
'Monsieur,  I  will  show  you.'  He  said  to  me:  'No,  give  me 
your  address,  my  daughter  has  some  purchases  to  make,  I  will 
take  a  carriage  and  reach  your  house  at  the  same  time  that 
you  do.'  I  gave  him  the  address.  When  I  mentioned  the 
house,  he  seemed  surprised  and  hesitated  for  an  instant,  then 
he  said:  'Never  mind,  I  will  come.'  When  the  mass  was 
finished,  I  watched  him  leave  the  church  with  his  daughter, 
and  I  saw  them  enter  a  carriage.  I  certainly  did  tell  him 
the  last  door  in  the  corridor,  on  the  right." 

"And  what  makes  you  think  that  he  will  come?" 

"I  have  just  seen  the  fiacre  turn  into  the  Rue  Petit- 
Banquier.  That  is  what  made  me  run  so." 

"How  do  you  know  that  it  was  the  same  fiacre?" 

"Because  I  took  notice  of  the  number,  so  there  1" 

"What  was  the  number  ?" 

"440." 

"Good,  you  are  a  clever  girl." 

The  girl  stared  boldly  at  her  father,  and  showing  the  shoes 
which  she  had  on  her  feet: — 

"A  clever  girl,  possibly;  but  I  tell  you  I  won't  put  these 
shoes  on  again,  and  that  I  won't,  for  the  sake  of  my  health,  in 
the  first  place,  and  for  the  sake  of  cleanliness,  in  the  next.  I 
don't  know  anything  more  irritating  than  shoes  that  squelch, 
and  go  ghi,  ghi,  ghi,  the  whole  time.  I  prefer  to  go  barefoot." 

"You  are  right,"  said  her  father,  in  a  sweet  tone  which 
contrasted  with  the  young  girl's  rudeness,  "but  then,  you  will 
not  be  allowed  to  enter  churches,  for  poor  people  must  have 
shoes  to  do  that.  One  cannot  go  barefoot  to  the  good  God," 
he  added  bitterly. 

Then,  returning  to  the  subject  which  absorbed  him : — 

"So  you  are  sure  that  he  will  come?" 

"He  is  following  on  my  heels,"  said  she. 

The  man  started  up.  A  sort  of  illumination  appeared  on 
his  countenance. 


THE  WICKED  POOR  MAN  201 

"Wife !"  he  exclaimed,  "you  hear.  Here  is  the  philanthro- 
pist. Extinguish  the  fire." 

The  stupefied  mother  did  not  stir. 

The  father,  with  the  agility  of  an  acrobat,  seized  a  broken- 
nosed  jug  which  stood  on  the  chimney,  and  flung  the  water  on 
the  brands. 

Then,  addressing  his  eldest  daughter: — 

"Here  you  !     Pull  the  straw  off  that  chair !" 

His  daughter  did  not  understand. 

He  seized  the  chair,  and  with  one  kick  he  rendered  it  seat- 
less.  His  leg  passed  through  it. 

As  he  withdrew  his  leg,  he  asked  his  daughter: — 

"Is  it  cold?" 

"Very  cold.     It  is  snowing." 

The  father  turned  towards  the  younger  girl  who  sat  on  the 
bed  near  the  window,  and  shouted  to  her  in  a  thundering 
voice : — 

"Quick !  get  off  that  bed.  you  lazy  thing !  will  you  never  do 
anything?  Break  a  pane  of  glass!" 

The  little  girl  jumped  off  the  bed  with  a  shiver. 

"Break  a  pane !"  he  repeated. 

The  child  stood  still  in  bewilderment. 

"Do  you  hear  me  ?"  repeated  her  father,  "I  tell  you  to  break 
a  pane !" 

The  child,  with  a  sort  of  terrified  obedience,  rose  on  tiptoe, 
and  struck  a  pane  with  her  fist.  The  glass  broke  and  fell  with 
a  loud  clatter. 

"Good,"  said  the  father. 

He  was  grave  and  abrupt.  His  glance  swept  rapidly  over 
all  the  crannies  of  the  garret.  One  would  have  said  that  he 
was  a  general  making  the  final  preparation  at  the  moment 
when  the  battle  is  on  the  point  of  beginning. 

The  mother,  who  had  not  said  a  word  so  far,  now  rose  and 
demanded  in  a  dull,  slow,  languid  voice,  whence  her  words 
seemed  to  emerge  in  a  congealed  state : — 

"What  do  you  mean  to  do,  my  dear  ?" 

"Get  into  bed,"  replied  the  man. 


202  MASIU8 

His  intonation  admitted  of  no  deliberation.  The  mother 
obeyed,  and  threw  herself  heavily  on  one  of  the  pallets. 

In  the  meantime,  a  sob  became  audible  in  one  corner. 

"What's  that  ?"  cried  the  father. 

The  younger  daughter  exhibited  her  bleeding  fist,  without 
quitting  the  corner  in  which  she  was  cowering.  She  had 
wounded  herself  while  breaking  the  window;  she  went  off, 
near  her  mother's  pallet  and  wept  silently. 

It  was  now  the  mother's  turn  to  start  up  and  exclaim : — 

"Just  see  there !  What  follies  you  commit !  She  has  cut 
herself  breaking  that  pane  for  you !" 

"So  much  the  better !"  said  the  man.    "I  foresaw  that." 

"What?    So  much  the  better?"  retorted  his  wife. 

"Peace !"  replied  the  father,  "I  suppress  the  liberty  of  the 
press." 

Then  tearing  the  woman's  chemise  which  he  was  wearing, 
he  made  a  strip  of  cloth  with  which  he  hastily  swathed  the 
little  girl's  bleeding  wrist. 

That  done,  his  eye  fell  with  a  satisfied  expression  on  his 
torn  chemise. 

"And  the  chemise  too,"  said  he,  "this  has  a  good  ap- 
pearance." 

An  icy  breeze  whistled  through  the  window  and  entered  the 
room.  The  outer  mist  penetrated  thither  and  diffused  itself 
like  a  whitish  sheet  of  wadding  vaguely  spread  by  invisible 
fingers.  Through  the  broken  pane  the  snow  could  be  seen 
falling.  The  snow  promised  by  the  Candlemas  sun  of  the 
preceding  day  had  actually  come. 

The  father  cast  a  glance  about  him  as  though  to  make  sure 
that  he  had  forgotten  nothing.  He  seized  an  old  shovel  and 
spread  ashes  over  the  wet  brands  in  such  a  manner  as  to 
entirely  conceal  them. 

Then  drawing  himself  up  and  leaning  against  the  chimney- 
piece  : — 

"Now,"  said  he,  "we  can  receive  the  philanthropist." 


THE  WICKED  POOR  MAN  203 

CHAPTER    VIII 

THE  RAY  OF  LIGHT  IN  THE  HOVEL 

THE  big  girl  approached  and  laid  her  hand  in  her  father's. 

"Feel  how  cold  I  am,"  said  she. 

"Bah !"  replied  the  father,  "I  am  much  colder  than  that." 

The  mother  exclaimed  impetuously: — 

"You  always  have  something  better  than  any  one  else,  so 
you  do !  even  bad  things." 

"Down  with  you !"  said  the  man. 

The  mother,  being  eyed  after  a  certain  fashion,  held  her 
tongue. 

Silence  reigned  for  a  moment  in  the  hovel.  The  elder  girl 
was  removing  the  mud  from  the  bottom  of  her  mantle,  with  a 
careless  air ;  her  younger  sister  continued  to  sob ;  the  mother 
had  taken  the  latter's  head  between  her  hands,  and  was  cover- 
ing it  with  kisses,  whispering  to  her  the  while: — 

"My  treasure,  I  entreat  you,  it  is  nothing  of  consequence, 
don't  cry,  you  will  anger  your  father." 

"No  !"  exclaimed  the  father,  "quite  the  contrary  !  sob  !  sob  ! 
that's  right." 

Then  turning  to  the  elder: — 

"There  now!  He  is  not  coming!  What  if  he  were 
not  to  come !  I  shall  have  extinguished  my  fire,  wrecked 
my  chair,  torn  my  shirt,  and  broken  my  pane  all  for 
nothing." 

"And  wounded  the  child !"  murmured  the  mother. 

"Do  you  know,"  went  on  the  father,  "that  it's  beastly  cold 
in  this  devil's  garret!  What  if  that  man  should  not  come! 
Oh !  See  there,  you !  He  makes  us  wait !  Tie  says  to  him- 
self: 'Well!  they  will  wait  for  me!  That's  what  they're 
there  for.'  Oh!  how  I  hate  them,  and  witli  what  joy.  jubila- 
tion, enthusiasm,  and  satisfaction  I  could  strangle  all  those 
rich  folks  !  all  those  rich  folks !  Those  men  who  pretend  to  be 
charitable,  who  put  on  airs,  who  go  to  mass,  who  make 


204  MARIUS 

presents  to  the  priesthood,  preachy,  preachy,  in  their  skull- 
caps, and  who  think  themselves  above  us,  and  who  come  for 
the  purpose  of  humiliating  us,  and  to  bring  us  'clothe?,'  as 
they  say !  old  duds  that  are  not  worth  four  sous  !  And  bread  ! 
That's  not  what  I  want,  pack  of  rascals  that  they  are,  it's 
money  !  Ah !  money  !  Never !  Because  they  say  that  we 
would  go  off  and  drink  it  up,  and  that  we  are  drunkards 
and  idlers  !  And  they !  What  are  they,  then,  and  what  have 
they  been  in  their  time !  Thieves !  They  never  could  have 
become  rich  otherwise !  Oh !  Society  ought  to  be  grasped 
by  the  four  corners  of  the  cloth  and  tossed  into  fhe  air,  all 
of  it !  It  would  all  be  smashed,  very  likely,  but  at  least,  no 
one  would  have  anything,  and  there  would  be  that  much 
gained !  But  what  is  that  blockhead  of  a  benevolent  gentle- 
man doing?  Will  he  come?  Perhaps  the  animal  has  for- 
gotten the  address!  I'll  bet  that  that  old  beast — " 

At  that  moment  there  came  a  light  tap  at  the  door,  the  man 
rushed  to  it  and  opened  it,  exclaiming,  amid  profound  bows 
and  smiles  of  adoration: — 

"Enter,  sir !  Deign  to  enter,  most  respected  benefactor, 
and  your  charming  young  lady,  also." 

A  man  of  ripe  age  and  a  young  girl  made  their  appearance 
on  the  threshold  of  the  attic. 

Marius  had  not  quitted  his  post.  His  feelings  for  the 
moment  surpassed  the  powers  of  the  human  tongue. 

It  was  She ! 

Whoever  has  loved  knows  all  the  radiant  meanings  con- 
tained in  those  three  letters  of  that  word :  She. 

It  was  certainly  she.  Marius  could  hardly  distinguish  her 
through  the  luminous  vapor  which  had  suddenly  spread  before 
his  eyes.  It  was  that  sweet,  absent  being,  that  star  which  had 
beamed  upon  him  for  six  months ;  it  was  those  eyes,  that  brow, 
that  mouth,  that  lovely  vanished  face  which  had  created  night 
by  its  departure.  The  vision  had  been  eclipsed,  now  it 
reappeared. 

It  reappeared  in  that  gloom,  in  that  garret,  in  that  mis- 
shapen attic,  in  all  that  horror. 


THE  WICKED  POOR  MAN 


205 


Harms  shuddered  in  dismay.  What!  It  was  she!  The 
palpitations  of  his  heart  troubled  his  sight.  He  felt  that  he 
was  on  the  brink  of  bursting  into  tears !  What !  He  beheld 
her  again  at  last,  after  having  sought  her  so  long!  It  seemed 
to  him  that  he  had  lost  his  soul,  and  that  he  had  just  found  it 
again. 

She  was  the  same  as  ever,  only  a  little  pale;  her  delicate  face 
was  framed  in  a  bonnet  of  violet  velvet,  her  figure  was  con- 
cealed beneath  a  pelisse  of  black  satin.  Beneath  her  long 
dress,  a  glimpse  could  be  caught  of  her  tiny  foot  shod  in  a 
silken  boot. 

She  was  still  accompanied  by  M.  Leblanc. 

She  had  taken  a  few  steps  into  the  room,  and  had  deposited 
a  tolerably  bulky  parcel  on  the  table. 

The  eldest  Jondrette  girl  had  retired  behind  the  door,  and 
was  staring  with  sombre  eyes  at  that  velvet  bonnet,  that  silk 
mantle,  and  that  charming,  happy  face. 


CHAPTER   IX 

JONDRETTE   COMES   NEAR   WEEPING 

THE  hovel  was  so  dark,  that  people  coming  from  without 
felt  on  entering  it  the  effect  produced  on  entering  a  cellar. 
The  two  new-comers  advanced,  therefore,  with  a  certain  hesita- 
tion, being  hardly  able  to  distinguish  the  vague  forms  sur- 
rounding them,  while  they  could  be  clearly  seen  and  scruti- 
nized by  the  eyes  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  garret,  who  were 
accustomed  to  this  twilight. 

M.  Leblanc  approached,  with  his  sad  but  kindly  look,  and 
said  to  Jondrette  the  father : — 

"Monsieur,  in  this  package  you  will  find  some  new  clothes 
and  some  woollen  stockings  and  blankets." 

"Our  angelic  benefactor  overwhelms  us,"  said  Jondrette, 
bowing  to  the  very  earth. 

Then,  bending  down  to  the  ear  of  his  oldest  daughter,  while 


206  MARIU8 

the  two  visitors  were  engaged  in  examining  this  lamentable 
interior,  he  added  in  a  low  and  rapid  voice: — 

"Hey  ?  What  did  I  say  ?  Duds  !  No  money  !  They  are 
all  alike!  By  the  way,  how  was  the  letter  to  that  old  block- 
head signed  ?" 

"Fabantou,"  replied  the  girl. 

"The  dramatic  artist,  good !" 

It  was  lucky  for  Jondrette,  that  this  had  occurred  to  him, 
for  at  the  very  moment,  M.  Leblanc  turned  to  him,  and  said  to 
him  with  the  air  of  a  person  who  is  seeking  to  recall  a 
name : — 

"I  see  that  you  are  greatly  to  be  pitied,  Monsieur — ' 

"Fabantou,"  replied  Jondrette  quickly. 

"Monsieur  Fabantou,  yes,  that  is  it.    I  remember." 

"Dramatic  artist,  sir,  and  one  who  has  had  some  success." 

Here  Jondrette  evidently  judged  the  moment  propitious  for 
capturing  the  "philanthropist."  He  exclaimed  with  an  accent 
which  smacked  at  the  same  time  of  the  vainglory  of  the 
mountebank  at  fairs,  and  the  humility  of  the  mendicant  on  the 
highway : — 

"A  pupil  of  Talma  !  Sir !  I  am  a  pupil  of  Talma !  For- 
tune formerly  smiled  on  me — Alas!  Now  it  is  misfortune's 
turn.  You  see,  my  benefactor,  no  bread,  no  fire.  My  poor 
babes  have  no  fire !  My  only  chair  has  no  seat !  A  broken 
pane  !  And  in  such  weather  !  My  spouse  in  bed  !  Ill !" 

"Poor  woman  !"  said  M.  Leblanc. 

"My  child  wounded !"  added  Jondrette. 

The  child,  diverted  by  the  arrival  of  the  strangers,  had 
fallen  to  contemplating  "the  young  lady,"  and  had  ceased  to 
sob. 

"Cry !  bawl !"  said  Jondrette  to  her  in  a  low  voice. 

At  the  same  time  he  pinched  her  sore  hand.  All  this  was 
done  with  the  talent  of  a  juggler. 

The  little  girl  gave  vent  to  loud  shrieks. 

The  adorable  young  girl,  whom  Marius,  in  his  heart,  called 
"his  Ursule,"  approached  her  hastily. 

"Poor,  dear  child !"  said  she. 


THE  WICKED  POOR  MAN  207 

"You  sec,  my  beautiful  young  lady,"  pursued  Jondrette, 
"her  bleeding  wrist !  It  came  tbrougb  an  accident  while  work- 
ing at  a  machine  to  earn  six  sous  a  day.  It  may  be  necessary 
to  cut  off  her  arm." 

"Really?"  said  the  old  gentleman,  in  alarm. 

The  little  girl,  taking  this  seriously,  fell  to  sobbing  more 
violently  than  ever. 

"Alas!  yes,  my  benefactor!"  replied  the  father. 

For  several  minutes,  Jondrette  had  been  scrutinizing  "the 
benefactor"  in  a  singular  fashion.  As  he  spoke,  he  seemed  to 
be  examining  the  other  attentively,  as  though  seeking  to  sum- 
mon up  his  recollections.  All  at  once,  profiting  by  a  moment 
when  the  new-comers  were  questioning  the  child  with  interest 
as  to  her  injured  hand,  he  passed  near  his  wife,  who  lay  in  her 
bed  with  a  stupid  and  dejected  air,  and  said  to  her  in  a  rapid 
but  very  low  tone : — 

'Take  a  look  at  that  man !" 

Then,  turning  to  M.  Leblanc,  and  continuing  his  lamenta- 
tions : — 

"You  see,  sir !  All  the  clothing  that  I  have  is  my  wife's 
chemise!  And  all  torn  at  tfiat!  In  the  depths  of  winter!  I 
can't  go  out  for  lack  of  a  coat.  If  I  had  a  coat  of  any  sort,  I 
would  go  and  see  Mademoiselle  Mars,  who  knows  me  and  is 
very  fond  of  me.  Docs  she  not  still  reside  in  the  Hue  do  la 
Tour-des-Dames ?  Do  you  know,  sir?  We  played  together  in 
the  provinces.  I  shared  her  laurels.  Celimene  would  come  to 
my  succor,  sir  !  Elmire  would  bestow  alms  on  Belisaire  !  Hut 
no,  nothing!  And  not  a  sou  in  the  house!  My  wife  ill,  and 
not  a  sou!  My  daughter  dangerously  injured,  not  a  sou! 
My  wife  suffers  from  fits  of  suffocation.  It  comes  from  her 
age,  and  besides,  her  nervous  system  is  affected.  She  ought  to 
have  assistance,  and  my  daughter  also  !  But  the  doctor  !  But 
the  apothecary!  How  am  I  to  pay  them?  I  would  kneel  to  a 
penny,  sir!  Such  is  the  condition  to  which  the  arts  are  re- 
duced. And  do  you  know,  my  charming  young  l:uly,  and  you, 
my  generous  protector,  do  you  know,  you  who  breathe  forth 
virtue  and  goodness,  and  who  perfume  that  church  where  my 


208  MARIV8 

daughter  sees  you  every  day  when  she  says  her  prayers  ? — For 
I  have  brought  up  my  children  religiously,  sir.  I  did  not  want 
them  to  take  to  the  theatre.  Ah  !  the  hussies  !  If  I  catch  them 
tripping !  I  do  not  jest,  that  I  don't !  I  read  them  lessons  on 
honor,  on  morality,  on  virtue !  Ask  them  !  They  have  got  to 
walk  straight.  They  are  none  of  your  unhappy  wretches  who 
begin  by  having  no  family,  and  end  by  espousing  the  public. 
One  is  Mamselle  Nobody,  and  one  becomes  Madame  Every- 
body. Deuce  take  it !  None  of  that  in  the  Fabantou  family ! 
I  mean  to  bring  them  up  virtuously,  and  they  shall  be  honest, 
and  nice,  and  believe  in  God,  by  the  sacred  name!  Well,  sir, 
my  worthy  sir,  do  you  know  what  is  going  to  happen  to-mor- 
row ?  To-morrow  is  the  fourth  day  of  February,  the  fatal  day, 
the  last  day  of  grace  allowed  me  by  my  landlord ;  if  by  this 
evening  I  have  not  paid  my  rent,  to-morrow  my  oldest  daugh- 
ter, my  spouse  with  her  fever,  my  child  with  her  wound, — we 
shall  all  four  be  turned  out  of  here  and  thrown  into  the  street, 
on  the  boulevard,  without  shelter,  in  the  rain,  in  the  snow. 
There,  sir.  I  owe  for  four  quarters — a  whole  year !  that  is  to 
say,  sixty  francs." 

Jondrette  lied.  Four  quarters  would  have  amounted  to  only 
forty  francs,  and  he  could  not  owe  four,  because  six  months 
had  not  elapsed  since  Marius  had  paid  for  two. 

M.  Leblanc  drew  five  francs  from  his  pocket  and  threw 
them  on  the  table. 

Jondrette  found  time  to  mutter  in  the  ear  of  his  eldest 
daughter : — 

"The  scoundrel !  What  does  he  think  I  can  do  with  his  five 
francs  ?  That  won't  pay  me  for  my  chair  and  pane  of  glass ! 
That's  what  comes  of  incurring  expenses !" 

In  the  meanwhile,  M.  Leblanc  had  removed  the  large  brown 
great-coat  which  he  wore  over  his  blue  coat,  and  had  thrown  it 
over  the  back  of  the  chair. 

"Monsieur  Fabantou,"  he  said,  "these  five  francs  are  all  that 
I  have  about  me,  but  I  shall  now  take  my  daughter  home,  and  I 
will  return  this  evening, — it  is  this  evening  that  you  must  pay, 
isitnot?" 


TUK   WICKED  I'OOff  AM  A'  209 

Jondrette's  face  lighted  up  with  a  strange  expression.  He 
replied  vivaciously: — 

"Yes,  respected  sir.  At  eight  o'clock,  I  must  be  at  my  land- 
lord's." 

"I  will  be  here  at  six,  and  I  will  fetch  you  the  sixty  francs." 

"My  benefactor!"  exclaimed  Jondrette,  overwhelmed.  And 
he  added,  in  a  low  tone :  "Take  a  good  look  at  him,  wife !" 

M.  Leblanc  had  taken  the  arm  of  the  young  girl,  once  more, 
and  had  turned  towards  the  door. 

"Farewell  until  this  evening,  my  friends !"  said  he. 

"Six  o'clock  ?"  said  Jondrette. 

"Six  o'clock  precisely." 

At  that  moment,  the  overcoat  lying  on  the  chair  caught  the 
eye  of  the  elder  Jondrette  girl. 

"You  are  forgetting  your  coat,  sir,"  said  she. 

Jondrette  darted  an  annihilating  look  at  his  daughter,  ac- 
companied by  a  formidable  shrug  of  the  shoulders. 

M.  Leblanc  turned  back  and  said,  with  a  smile: — 

"I  have  not  forgotten  it,  I  am  leaving  it." 

"0  my  protector !"  said  Jondrette,  "my  august  benefactor, 
I  melt  into  tears !  Permit  me  to  accompany  you  to  your  car- 
riage." 

"If  you  come  out,"  answered  M.  Leblanc,  "put  on  this  coat. 
It  really  is  very  cold." 

Jondrette  did  not  need  to  be  told  twice.  He  hastily  donned 
the  brown  great-coat.  And  all  three  went  out,  Jondrette  pre- 
ceding the  two  strangers. 


CHAPTER    X 

TARIFF   OF    LICENSED    CABS:    TWO    FRANCS    AN    HOUR 

MARIUS  had  lost  nothing  of  this  entire  scene,  and  yet,  in 
reality,  had  seen  nothing.  His  eyes  had  remained  fixed  on  the 
young  girl,  his  heart  had,  so  to  speak,  seized  her  and  wholly 
enveloped  her  from  the  moment  of  her  very  first  step  in  that 


210  MAKW8 

garret.  During  her  entire  stay  there,  he  had  lived  that  life  of 
ecstasy  which  suspends  material  perceptions  and  precipitates 
the  whole  soul  on  a  single  point.  He  contemplated,  not  that 
girl,  but  that  light  which  wore  a  satin  pelisse  and  a  velvet  bon- 
net. The  star  Sirius  might  have  entered  the  room,  and  he 
would  not  have  been  any  more  dazzled. 

While  the  young  girl  was  engaged  in  opening  the  package, 
unfolding  the  clothing  and  the  blankets,  questioning  the  sick 
mother  kindly,  and  the  little  injured  girl  tenderly,  he  watched 
her  every  movement,  he  sought  to  catch  her  words.  He  knew 
her  eyes,  her  brow,  her  beauty,  her  form,  her  walk,  he  did  not 
know  the  sound  of  her  voice.  He  had  once  fancied  that  he 
had  caught  a  few  words  at  the  Luxembourg,  but  he  was  not 
absolutely  sure  of  the  fact.  He  would  have  given  ten  years  of 
his  life  to  hear  it,  in  order  that  he  might  bear  away  in  his  soul 
a  little  of  that  music.  But  everything  was  drowned  in  the 
lamentable  exclamations  and  trumpet  bursts  of  Jondrette. 
This  added  a  touch  of  genuine  wrath  to  Harms'  ecstasy.  He 
devoured  her  with  his  eyes.  He  could  not  believe  that  it  really 
was  that  divine  creature  whom  he  saw  in  the  midst  of  those 
vile  creatures  in  that  monstrous  lair.  It  seemed  to  him  that  he 
beheld  a  humming-bird  in  the  midst  of  toads. 

When  she  took  her  departure,  he  had  but  one  thought,  to  fol- 
low her,  to  cling  to  her  trace,  not  to  quit  her  until  he  learned 
where  she  lived,  not  to  lose  her  again,  at  least,  after  having  so 
miraculously  re-discovered  her.  He  leaped  down  from  the 
commode  and  seized  his  hat.  As  he  laid  his  hand  on  the  lock 
of  the  door,  and  was  on  the  point  of  opening  it,  a  sudden 
reflection  caused  him  to  pause.  The  corridor  was  long,  the 
staircase  steep,  Jondrette  was  talkative,  M.  L'iblanc  had,  no 
doubt,  not  yet  regained  his  carriage;  if.  on  turning  round  in 
the  corridor,  or  on  the  staircase,  he  were  to  catch  sight  of  him, 
Harius,  in  that  house,  he  would,  evidently,  take  the  alarm,  and 
find  means  to  escape  from  him  again,  and  this  time  it  would  be 
final.  What  was  he  to  do ?  Should  he  wait  a  little?  But  while 
he  was  waiting,  the  carriage  might  drive  off.  Marius  was  per- 
plexed. At  last  he  accepted  the  risk  and  quitted  his  room. 


THE  WICKED  POOR  MAN  211 

There  was  no  one  in  the  corridor.  He  hastened  to  the 
stairs.  There  was  no  one  on  the  staircase.  He  descended  in 
all  haste,  and  reached  the  boulevard  in  time  to  see  a  fiacre 
turning  the  corner  of  the  Rue  du  Petit-Banquier,  on  its  way 
back  to  Paris. 

Marius  rushed  headlong  in  that  direction.  On  arriving  at 
the  angle  of  the  boulevard,  he  caught  sight  of  the  fiacre  again, 
rapidly  descending  the  Rue  Mouffetard;  the  carriage  was 
already  a  long  way  off,  and  there  was  no  means  of  overtaking 
it;  what!  run  after  it?  Impossible;  and  besides,  the  people  in 
the  carriage  would  assuredly  notice  an  individual  running  at 
full  speed  in  pursuit  of  a  fiacre,  and  the  father  would  recognize 
him.  At  that  moment,  wonderful  and  unprecedented  good 
luck,  Marius  perceived  an  empty  cab  passing  along  the  boule- 
vard. There  was  but  one  thing  to  be  done,  to  jump  into  this 
cab  and  follow  the  fiacre.  That  was  sure,  efficacious,  and  free 
from  danger. 

Marius  made  the  driver  a  sign  to  halt,  and  called  to  him : — 

"By  the  hour?" 

Marius  wore  no  cravat,  he  had  on  his  working-coat,  which 
was  destitute  of  buttons,  his  shirt  was  torn  along  one  of  the 
plaits  on  the  bosom. 

The  driver  halted,  winked,  and  held  out  his  left  hand  to 
Marius,  rubbing  his  forefinger  gently  with  his  thumb. 

"What  is  it  ?"  said  Marius. 

"Pay  in  advance,"  said  the  coachman. 

Marius  recollected  that  he  had  but  sixteen  sous  about  him. 

"How  much  ?"  he  demanded. 

"Forty  sous." 

"I  will  pay  on  my  return." 

The  driver's  only  reply  was  to  whistle  the  air  of  La  Palisse 
and  to  whip  up  his  horse. 

Marius  stared  at  the  retreating  cabriolet  with  a  bewildered 
air.  For  the  lack  of  four  and  twenty  sous,  lie  was  losing  his 
joy,  his  happiness,  his  love!  He  had  seen,  and  he  was  becom- 
ing blind  again.  He  reflected  bitterly,  and  it  must  be  con- 
fessed, with  profound  regret,  on  the  five  francs  which  he  had 


212  MARIUS 

bestowed,  that  very  morning,  on  that  miserable  girl.  If  he  had 
had  those  five  francs,  he  would  have  been  saved,  he  would  have 
been  born  again,  he  would  have  emerged  from  the  limbo  and 
darkness,  he  would  have  made  his  escape  from  isolation  and 
spleen,  from  his  widowed  state ;  he  might  have  re-knotted  the 
black  thread  of  his  destiny  to  that  beautiful  golden  thread, 
which  had  just  floated  before  his  eyes  and  had  broken  at  the 
same  instant,  once  more !  He  returned  to  his  hovel  in  despair. 

He  might  have  told  himself  that  M.  Leblanc  had  promised 
to  return  in  the  evening,  and  that  all  he  had  to  do  was  to  set 
about  the  matter  more  skilfully,  so  that  he  might  follow  him 
on  that  occasion ;  but,  in  his  contemplation,  it  is  doubtful 
whether  he  had  heard  this. 

As  he  was  on  the  point  of  mounting  the  staircase,  he  per- 
ceived, on  the  other  side  of  the  boulevard,  near  the  deserted 
wall  skirting  the  Rue  De  la  Barriere-des-Gobelins,  Jondrette, 
wrapped  in  the  "philanthropist's"  great-coat,  engaged  in  con- 
versation with  one  of  those  men  of  disquieting  aspect  who  have 
been  dubbed  by  common  consent,  prowlers  of  the  barriers; 
people  of  equivocal  face,  of  suspicious  monologues,  who  pre- 
sent the  air  of  having  evil  minds,  and  who  generally  sleep 
in  the  daytime,  which  suggests  the  supposition  that  they  work 
by  night. 

These  two  men,  standing  there  motionless  and  in  conversa- 
tion, in  the  snow  which  was  falling  in  whirlwinds,  formed  a 
group  that  a  policeman  would  surely  have  observed,  but  which 
Marius  hardly  noticed. 

Still,  in  spite  of  his  mournful  preoccupation,  he  could  not 
refrain  from  saying  to  himself  that  this  prowler  of  the  barriers 
with  whom  Jondrette  was  talking  resembled  a  certain  Pan- 
chaud,  alias  Printanier,  alias  Bigrenaille,  whom  Courfeyrac 
had  once  pointed  out  to  him  as  a  very  dangerous  nocturnal 
roamer.  This  man's  name  the  reader  has  learned  in  the  pre- 
ceding book.  This  Panchaud,  alias  Printanier,  alias  Bigre- 
naille, figured  later  on  in  many  criminal  trials,  and  became 
a  notorious  rascal.  He  was  at  that  time  only  a  famous  rascal. 
To-day  he  exists  in  the  state  of  tradition  among  ruffians  and 


THE  WICKED  POOR  MAN  213 

assassins.  He  was  at  the  head  of  a  school  towards  the  end  of 
the  last  reign.  And  in  the  evening,  at  nightfall,  at  the  hour 
when  groups  form  and  talk  in  whispers,  he  was  discussed  at 
La  Force  in  the  Fosse-aux-Lions.  One  might  even,  in  that 
prison,  precisely  at  the  spot  where  the  sewer  which  served  the 
unprecedented  escape,  in  broad  daylight,  of  thirty  prisoners, 
in  1843,  passes  under  the  culvert,  read  his  name,  PAN- 
CHAUD,  audaciously  carved  by  his  own  hand  on  the  wall 
of  the  sewer,  during  one  of  his  attempts  at  flight.  In  1832, 
the  police  already  had  their  eye  on  him,  but  he  had  not  as 
yet  made  a  serious  beginning. 


CHAPTER   XI 

OFFERS  OF  SERVICE  FROM  MISERY  TO  WRETCHEDNESS 

MARIUS  ascended  the  stairs  of  the  hovel  with  slow  steps ;  at 
the  moment  when  he  was  about  to  re-enter  his  cell,  he  caught 
sight  of  the  elder  Jondrette  girl  following  him  through  the 
corridor.  The  very  sight  of  this  girl  was  odious  to  him ;  it  was 
she  who  had  his  five  francs,  it  was  too  late  to  demand  them 
back,  the  cab  was  no  longer  there,  the  fiacre  was  far  away. 
Moreover,  she  would  not  have  given  them  back.  As  for 
questioning  her  about  the  residence  of  the  persons  who  had 
just  been  there,  that  was  useless ;  it  was  evident  that  she  did 
not  know,  since  the  letter  signed  Fabantou  had  been  addressed 
"to  the  benevolent  gentleman  of  the  church  of  Saint-Jacques- 
du-Haut-Pas." 

Marius  entered  his  room  and  pushed  the  door  to  after  him. 

It  did  not  close ;  he  turned  round  and  beheld  a  hand  which 
held  the  door  half  open. 

"What  is  it?"  he  asked,  "who  is  there?" 

It  was  the  Jondrette  girl. 

"Is  it  you  ?"  resumed  Marius  almost  harshly,  "still  you ! 
What  do  you  want  with  me?" 

She  appeared  to  be  thoughtful  and  did  not  look  at  him. 


214  MARIUS 

She  DO  longer  had  the  air  of  assurance  which  had  character- 
ized her  that  morning.  She  did  not  enter,  hut  held  back  in 
the  darkness  of  the  corridor,  where  Marius  could  see  her 
through  the  half-open  door. 

"Come  now,  will  you  answer?"  cried  Marius.  "What  do 
you  want  with  me  ?" 

She  raised  her  dull  eyes,  in  which  a  sort  of  gleam  seemed  to 
flicker  vaguely,  and  said : — 

"Monsieur  Marius,  you  look  sad.  What  is  the  matter  with 
you  ?" 

"With  me !"  said  Harms. 

"Yes,  you." 

"There  is  nothing  the  matter  with  me." 

"Yes,  there  is !" 

"No." 

"I  tell  you  there  is !" 

"Let  me  alone !" 

Marius  gave  the  door  another  push,  but  she  retained  her 
hold  on  it. 

"Stop,"  said  she,  "you  are  in  the  wrong.  Although  you  are 
not  rich,  you  were  kind  this  morning.  Be  so  again  now.  You 
gave  me  something  to  eat,  now  tell  me  what  ails  you.  You  are 
grieved,  that  is  plain.  I  do  not  want  you  to  be  grieved.  What 
can  be  done  for  it?  Can  I  be  of  any  service?  Employ  me.  I 
do  not  ask  for  }rour  secrets,  you  need  not  tell  them  to  me,  but 
I  may  be  of  use,  nevertheless.  I  may  be  able  to  help  you, 
since  I  help  my  father.  When  it  is  necessary  to  carry  letters, 
to  go  to  houses,  to  inquire  from  door  to  door,  to  find  out  an 
address,  to  follow  any  one.  I  am  of  service.  Well,  you  may 
assuredly  tell  me  what  is  the  matter  with  you,  and  I  will  go 
and  speak  to  the  persons;  sometimes  it  is  enough  if  some 
one  speaks  to  the  persons,  that  suffices  to  let  them  understand 
matters,  and  everything  comes  right.  Make  use  of  me." 

An  idea  flashed  across  Marius'  mind.  What  branch  does 
one  disdain  when  one  feels  that  one  is  falling? 

He  drew  near  to  the  Jondrette  girl. 

"Listen — "  he  said  to  her. 


Tin:  WICKED  POOR  MAN  215 

She  interrupted  him  with  a  gleam  of  joy  in  her  eyes. 

"Oh  yes,  do  call  me  thou!    I  like  that  better." 

"Well,"  he  resumed,  "thou  hast  brought  hither  that  old 
gentleman  and  his  daughter!" 

"Yes." 

"Dost  thou  know  their  address?" 

"No." 

"Find  it  for  me." 

The  Jondrette's  dull  eyes  had  grown  joyous,  and  they  now 
became  gloomy. 

"Is  that  what  you  want?"  she  demanded. 

"Yes." 

"Do  you  know  them?" 

"No." 

"That  is  to  say,"  she  resumed  quickly,  "you  do  not  know 
her,  but  you  wish  to  know  her." 

This  them,  which  had  turned  into  her  had  something  inde- 
scribably significant  and  bitter  about  it. 

"Well,  can  you  do  it?"  said  Marius. 

"You  shall  have  the  beautiful  lady's  address." 

There  was  dill  a  shade  in  the  words  "the  beautiful  lady" 
which  troubled  Mr:ius.  lie  resumed: — 

"Never  mind,  after  all,  the  address  of  the  father  and 
daughter.  Their  address,  indeed  !" 

She  gazed  fixedly  at  him. 

"What  will  you  give  me?" 

"Anything  you  like." 

"Anything  I  like?" 

"Yes." 

"Yen  shall  have  the  address." 

She  dropped  her  head;  then,  with  a  brusque  movement,  she 
pulled  to  the  door,  which  closed  behind  her. 

Marius  found  himself  alone. 

He  dropped  into  a  chair,  with  his  head  and  both  elbows  on 
his  bed,  absorbed  in  thoughts  which  he  could  not  grasp,  and  as 
though  a  prey  to  vertigo.  All  that  had  taken  place  since  the 
morning,  the  appearance  of  the  angel,  her  disappearance, 


216  MARIU8 

what  that  creature  had  just  said  to  him,  a  gleam  of  hope 
floating  in  an  immense  despair, — this  was  what  filled  his  brain 
confusedly. 

All  at  once  he  was  violently  aroused  from  his  revery. 

He  heard  the  shrill,  hard  voice  of  Jondrette  utter  these 
words,  which  were  fraught  with  a  strange  interest  for  him : — 

"I  tell  you  that  I  am  sure  of  it,  and  that  I  recognized 
him." 

Of  whom  was  Jondrette  speaking?  Whom  had  he  recog- 
nized? M.  Leblanc?  The  father  of  "his  Ursule"?  What! 
Did  Jondrette  know  him?  Was  Marius  about  to  obtain  in 
this  abrupt  and  unexpected  fashion  all  the  information  with- 
out which  his  life  was  so  dark  to  him  ?  Was  he  about  to  learn 
at  last  who  it  was  that  he  loved,  who  that  young  girl  was? 
Who  her  father  was  ?  Was  the  dense  shadow  which  enwrapped 
them  on  the  point  of  being  dispelled  ?  Was  the  veil  about  to 
be  rent  ?  Ah  !  Heavens ! 

He  bounded  rather  than  climbed  upon  his  commode,  and 
resumed  his  post  near  the  little  peep-hole  in  the  partition  wall. 

Again  he  beheld  the  interior  of  Jondrette's  hovel. 


CHAPTER   XII 

THE  USE   MADE   OF   M.    LEBLANC'S   FIVE-FRANC   PIECE 

NOTHING  in  the  aspect  of  the  family  was  altered,  except 
that  the  wife  and  daughters  had  levied  on  the  package  and 
put  on  woollen  stockings  and  jackets.  Two  new  blankets 
were  thrown  across  the  two  beds. 

Jondrette  had  evidently  just  returned.  He  still  had  the 
breathlessness  of  out  of  doors.  His  daughters  were  seated  on 
the  floor  near  the  fireplace,  the  elder  engaged  in  dressing  the 
younger's  wounded  hand.  His  wife  had  sunk  back  on  the  bed 
near  the  fireplace,  with  a  face  indicative  of  astonishment. 
Jondrette  was  pacing  up  and  down  the  garret  with  long 
strides.  His  eyes  were  extraordinary. 


THE  WICKED  POOR  MAN  217 

The  woman,  who  seemed  timid  and  overwhelmed  with 
stupor  in  the  presence  of  her  husband,  turned  to  say : — 

"What,  really?    You  are  sure?" 

"Sure  !  Eight  years  have  passed  !  But  I  recognize  him  ! 
Ah  !  I  recognize  him  .  I  knew  him  at  once !  What !  Didn't 
it  force  itself  on  you?" 

"No." 

"But  I  told  you :  Tay  attention !'  Why,  it  is  his  figure,  it 
is  his  face,  only  older. — there  are  people  who  do  not  grow  old, 
I  don't  know  how  they  manage  it, — it  is  the  very  sound  of  his 
voice.  He  is  better  dressed,  that  is  all !  Ah !  you  mysterious 
old  devil,  I've  got  you,  that  I  have !" 

He  paused,  and  said  to  his  daughters: — 

"Get  out  of  here,  you! — It's  queer  that  it  didn't  strike 
you !" 

They  arose  to  obey. 

The  mother  stammered: — 

"With  her  injured  hand." 

"The  air  will  do  it  good,"  said  Jondrette.     "Be  off." 

It  was  plain  that  this  man  was  of  the  sort  to  whom  no  one 
offers  to  reply.  The  two  girls  departed. 

At  the  moment  when  they  were  about  to  pass  through  the 
door,  the  father  detained  the  elder  by  the  arm,  and  said  to  her 
with  a  peculiar  accent : — 

"You  will  be  her  >  at  five  o'clock  precisely.  Both  of  you. 
I  shall  need  you." 

Marius  redoubled  his  attention. 

On  being  left  alone  with  his  wife,  Jondrette  began  to  pace 
the  room  again,  and  made  the  tour  of  it  two  or  three  times  in 
silence.  Then  he  spent  several  minutes  in  tucking  the  lower 
part  of  the  woman's  chemise  which  he  wore  into  his  trousers. 

All  at  once,  he  turned  to  the  female  Jondrette,  folded  his 
arms  and  exclaimed  : — 

"And  would  you  like  to  have  me  tell  you  something?  The 
young  lady — 

"Well,  what?"  retorted  his  wife,  "the  young  lady?" 

Marius  could  not  doubt  that  it  was  really  she  of  whom  thev 


218  MAPI  US 

were  speaking.  He  listened  with  ardent  anxiety.  His  whole 
life  was  in  his  ears. 

But  Jondrette  had  bent  over  and  spoke  to  his  wife  in  a 
whisper.  Then  he  straightened  himself  up  and  concluded 
aloud : — 

"It  is  she !" 

"That  one  ?"  said  his  wife. 

"That  very  one,"  said  the  husband. 

No  expression  can  reproduce  the  significance  of  the  mother's 
words.  Surprise,  rage,  hate,  wrath,  were  mingled  and  com- 
bined in  one  monstrous  intonation.  The  pronunciation  of  a 
few  words,  the  name,  no  doubt,  which  her  husband  had 
whispered  in  her  ear,  had  sufficed  to  rouse  this  huge,  som- 
nolent woman,  and  from  being  repulsive  she  became  terrible. 

"It  is  not  possible !"  she  cried.  "When  I  think  that  my 
daughters  are  going  barefoot,  and  have  not  a  gown  to  their 
backs !  What !  A  satin  pelisse,  a  velvet  bonnet,  boots,  and 
everything ;  more  than  two  hundred  francs'  worth  of  clothes ! 
so  that  one  would  think  she  was  a  lady !  No,  you  are  mis- 
taken !  Why,  in  the  first  place,  the  other  was  hideous,  and 
this  one  is  not  so  bad-looking !  She  really  is  not  bad-looking ! 
It  can't  be  she !" 

"I  tell  you  that  it  is  she.    You  will  see." 

At  this  absolute  assertion,  the  Jondrette  woman  raised  her 
large,  red,  blonde  face  and  stared  at  the  ceiling  with  a 
horrible  expression.  At  that  moment,  she  seemed  to  Marius 
even  more  to  be  feared  than  her  husband.  She  was  a  sow 
with  the  look  of  a  tigress. 

"What !"  she  resumed,  "that  horrible,  beautiful  young  lady, 
who  gazed  at  my  daughters  with  an  air  of  pity, — she  is  that 
beggar  brat !  Oh !  I  should  like  to  kick  her  stomach  in  for 
her!" 

She  sprang  off  of  the  bed,  and  remained  standing  for  a 
moment,  her  hair  in  disorder,  her  nostrils  dilating,  her  mouth 
half  open,  her  fists  clenched  and  drawn  back.  Then  she  fell 
back  on  the  bed  once  more.  The  man  paced  to  and  fro  and 
paid  no  attention  to  his  female. 


THE  WICKED  POO]!  MAN  219 

After  a  silence  lasting  several  minutes,  he  approached  the 
female  Jondrette,  and  halted  in  front  of  her,  with  folded 
arms,  as  he  had  done  a  moment  before : — 

"And  shall  I  tell  you  another  thing?" 

"What  is  it  ?"  she  asked. 

He  answered  in  a  low,  curt  voice: — 

"My  fortune  is  made." 

The  woman  stared  at  him  with  the  look  that  signifies:  "Ts 
the  person  who  is  addressing  me  on  the  point  of  going  mad  ?" 

He  went  on : — 

"Thunder !  It  was  not  so  very  long  ago  that  I  was  a  parish- 
ioner of  the  parish  of  die-of-hunger-if-you-have-a-fire,-die-of- 
cold-if-you-have-bread  !  I  have  had  enough  of  misery !  my 
share  and  other  people's  share !  I  am  not  joking  any  longer. 
I  don't  find  it  comic  any  more,  I've  had  enough  of  puns,  good 
God  !  no  more  farces,  Eternal  Father !  I  want  to  eat  till  I  am 
full,  I  want  to  drink  my  fill !  to  gormandize !  to  sleep !  to  do 
nothing !  I  want  to  have  my  turn,  so  I  do,  come  now !  before 
I  die !  I  want  to  be  a  bit  of  a  millionnaire !" 

He  took  a  turn  round  the  hovel,  and  added: — 

"Like  other  people." 

"What  do  you  mean  by  that  ?"  asked  the  woman. 

He  shook  his  head,  winked,  screwed  up  one  eye,  and  raised 
his  voice  like  a  medical  professor  who  is  about  to  make  a  dem- 
onstration : — 

"What  do  I  mean  by  that  ?    Listen  !" 

"Hush !"  muttered  the  woman,  "not  so  loud !  These  are 
matters  which  must  not  be  overheard." 

"Bah!  Who's  here?  Our  neighbor?  I  saw  him  go  out  a 
little  while  ago.  Besides,  he  doesn't  listen,  the  big  booby.  And 
I  tell  you  that  I  saw  him  go  out." 

Nevertheless,  by  a  sort  of  instinct,  Jondrette  lowered  his 
voice,  although  not  sufficiently  to  prevent  Marius  hearing  his 
words.  One  favorable  circumstance,  which  enabled  Marius  not 
to  lose  a  word  of  this  conversation  was  the  falling  snow  which 
deadened  the  sound  of  vehicles  on  the  boulevard. 

This  is  what  Marius  heard : — 


220  MARIV8 

"Listen  carefully.  The  Croesus  is  caught,  or  as  good  as 
caught !  That's  all  settled  already.  Everything  is  arranged. 
I  have  seen  some  people.  He  will  come  here  this  evening  at 
six  o'clock.  To  bring  sixty  francs,  the  rascal !  Did  you  notice 
how  I  played  that  game  on  him,  my  sixty  francs,  my  landlord, 
my  fourth  of  February  ?  I  don't  even  owe  for  one  quarter ! 
Isn't  he  a  fool !  So  he  will  come  at  six  o'clock !  That's  the 
hour  when  our  neighbor  goes  to  his  dinner.  Mother  Bougon  is 
off  washing  dishes  in  the  city.  There's  not  a  soul  in  the  house. 
The  neighbor  never  comes  home  until  eleven  o'clock.  The 
children  shall  stand  on  watch.  You  shall  help  us.  He  will 
give  in." 

"And  what  if  he  does  not  give  in?"  demanded  his  wife. 

Jondrette  made  a  sinister  gesture,  and  said : — 

"We'll  fix  him." 

And  he  burst  out  laughing. 

This  was  the  first  time  Marius  had  seen  him  laugh.  The 
laugh  was  cold  and  sweet,  and  provoked  a  shudder. 

Jondrette  opened  a  cupboard  near  the  fireplace,  and  drew 
from  it  an  old  cap,  which  he  placed  on  his  head,  after  brushing 
it  with  his  sleeve. 

"Now,"  said  he,  "I'm  going  out.  I  have  some  more  people 
that  I  must  see.  Good  ones.  You'll  see  how  well  the  whole 
thing  will  work.  I  shall  be  away  as  short  a  time  as  possible, 
it's  a  fine  stroke  of  business,  do  you  look  after  the  house." 

And  with  both  fists  thrust  into  the  pockets  of  his  trousers,  he 
stood  for  a  moment  in  thought,  then  exclaimed : — 

"Do  you  know,  it's  mighty  lucky,  by  the  way,  that  he  didn't 
recognize  me !  If  he  had  recognized  me  on  his  side,  he  would 
not  have  come  back  again.  He  would  have  slipped  through  our 
fingers !  It  was  my  beard  that  saved  us !  my  romantic  beard  ! 
my  pretty  little  romantic  beard  !" 

And  again  he  broke  into  a  laugh. 

He  stepped  to  the  window.  The  snow  was  still  falling,  and 
streaking  the  gray  of  the  sky. 

"What  beastly  weather !"  said  he. 

Then  lapping  his  overcoat  across  his  breast: — 


THE  WICKED  POOR  MAN  221 

"This  rind  is  too  large  for  me.  Never  mind,"  he  added,  'Tie 
did  a  devilish  good  thing  in  leaving  it  for  me,  the  old  scoun- 
drel !  If  it  hadn't  been  for  that,  I  couldn't  have  gone  out,  and 
everything  would  have  gone  wrong !  What  small  points  things 
hang  on,  anyway !" 

And  pulling  his  cap  down  over  his  eyes,  he  quitted  the  room. 

He  had  barely  had  time  to  take  half  a  dozen  steps  from  the 
door,  when  the  door  opened  again,  and  his  savage  but  intelli- 
gent face  made  its  appearance  once  more  in  the  opening. 

"I  came  near  forgetting,"  said  he.  "You  are  to  have  a  bra- 
zier of  charcoal  ready." 

And  he  flung  into  his  wife's  apron  the  five-franc  piece  which 
the  "philanthropist"  had  left  with  him. 

"A  brazier  of  charcoal  ?"  asked  his  wife. 

"Yes." 

"How  many  bushels?" 

"  Two  good  ones." 

"That  will  come  to  thirty  sous.  With  the  rest  I  will  buy 
something  for  dinner." 

"The  devil,  no." 

"Why?" 

"Don't  go  and  spend  the  hundred-sou  piece." 

"Why?" 

"Because  I  shall  have  to  buy  something,  too." 

"What?" 

"Something." 

"How  much  shall  you  need  ?" 

"Whereabouts  in  the  neighborhood  is  there  an  ironmonger's 
shop  ?" 

"Rue  Mouffetard." 

"Ah  !  yes,  at  the  corner  of  a  street ;  I  can  see  the  shop." 

"But  tell  me  how  much  you  will  need  for  what  you  have  to 
purchase  ?" 

"Fifty  sous — three  francs." 

"There  won't  be  much  left  for  dinner." 

"Eating  is  not  the  point  to-day.  There's  something  better 
to  be  done." 


222  MARIU8 

"That's  enough,  my  jewel." 

At  this  word  from  his  wife,  Jondrette  closed  the  door  again, 
and  this  time,  Marius  heard  his  step  die  away  in  the  corridor  of 
the  hovel,  and  descend  the  staircase  rapidly. 

At  that  moment,  one  o'clock  struck  from  the  church  of 
Saint-Medard. 

CHAPTER   XIII 

SOLUS  CUM  SOLO,  IN  LOCO  REMOTO,  NON  COQITABUNTUR  ORARE 
PATER  NOSTER 

MARIUS,  dreamer  as  he  was,  was,  as  we  have  said,  firm  and 
energetic  by  nature.  His  habits  of  solitary  meditation,  while 
they  had  developed  in  him  sympathy  and  compassion,  had, 
perhaps,  diminished  the  faculty  for  irritation,  but  had  left 
intact  the  power  of  waxing  indignant;  he  had  the  kindliness 
of  a  brahmin,  and  the  severity  of  a  judge;  he  took  pity  upon  a 
toad,  but  he  crushed  a  viper.  Now,  it  was  into  a  hole  of  vipers 
that  his  glance  had  just  been  directed,  it  was  a  nest  of  mon- 
sters that  he  had  beneath  his  eyes. 

"These  wretches  must  be  stamped  upon,"  said  he. 

Not  one  of  the  enigmas  which  he  had  hoped  to  see  solved 
had  been  elucidated;  on  the  contrary,  all  of  them  had  been 
rendered  more  dense,  if  anything;  he  knew  nothing  more 
about  the  beautiful  maiden  of  the  Luxembourg  and  the  man 
whom  he  called  M.  Leblanc,  except  that  Jondrette  was  ac- 
quainted with  them.  Athwart  the  mysterious  words  which  had 
been  uttered,  the  only  thing  of  which  he  caught  a  distinct 
glimpse  was  the  fact  that  an  ambush  was  in  course  of  prep- 
aration, a  dark  but  terrible  trap ;  that  both  of  them  were  incur- 
ring great  danger,  she  probably,  her  father  certainly;  that  they 
must  be  saved ;  that  the  hideous  plots  of  the  Jondrettes  must 
be  thwarted,  and  the  web  of  these  spiders  broken. 

He  scanned  the  female  Jondrctte  for  a  moment.  She  had 
pulled  an  old  sheet-iron  stove  from  a  corner,  and  she  was  rum- 
maging among  the  old  heap  of  iron. 


THE  WICKED  POOR  MAX  033 

He  descended  from  the  commode  as  softly  as  possible,  taking 
care  not  to  make  the  least  noise.  Amid  his  terror  as  to  what 
was  in  preparation,  and  in  the  horror  with  which  the  Jond- 
rettes  had  inspired  him,  lie  experienced  a  sort  of  joy  at  the  idea 
that  it  might  he  granted  to  him  perhaps  to  render  a  service  to 
the  one  whom  he  loved. 

But  how  was  it  to  be  done?  How  warn  the  persons  threat- 
ened? He  did  not  know  their  address.  They  had  reappeared 
for  an  instant  before  his  eyes,  and  had  then  plunged  back 
again  into  the  immense  depths  of  Paris.  Should  he  wait  for 
M.  Leblanc  at  the  door  that  evening  at  six  o'clock,  at  the  mo- 
ment of  his  arrival,  and  warn  him  of  the  trap?  But  Jond- 
rette  and  his  men  would  see  him  on  the  watch,  the  spot  was 
lonely,  they  were  stronger  than  he,  they  would  devise  means 
to  seize  him  or  to  get  him  away,  and  the  man  whom  Marius 
was  anxious  to  save  would  be  lost.  One  o'clock  had  just  struck, 
the  trap  was  to  be  sprung  at  six.  Marius  had  five  hours  before 
him. 

There  was  but  one  thing  to  be  done. 

He  put  on  his  decent  coat,  knotted  a  silk  handkerchief  round 
his  neck,  took  his  hat,  and  went  out,  without  making  any 
more  noise  than  if  he  had  been  treading  on  moss  with  bare 
feet. 

Moreover,  the  Jondrette  woman  continued  to  rummage 
among  her  old  iron. 

Once  outside  of  the  house,  he  made  for  the  Rue  du  Petit- 
Banquier. 

He  had  almost  reached  the  middle  of  this  street,  near  a  very 
low  wall  which  a  man  can  easily  step  over  at  certain  points, 
and  which  abuts  on  a  waste  space,  and  was  walking  slowly,  in 
consequence  of  his  preoccupied  condition,  and  the  snow  dead- 
ened the  sound  of  his  steps;  all  at  once  he  heard  voices  talking 
very  close  by.  He  turned  his  head,  the  street  was  deserted, 
there  was  not  a  soul  in  it,  it  was  broad  daylight,  and  yet  he 
distinctly  heard  voices. 

Jt  occurred  to  him  to  glance  over  the  wall  which  he  was 
skirting. 


224  MARIUS 

There,  in  fact,  sat  two  men,  flat  on  the  snow,  with  their 
backs  against  the  wall,  talking  together  in  subdued  tones. 

These  two  persons  were  strangers  to  him  ;  one  was  a  bearded 
man  in  a  blouse,  and  the  other  a  long-haired  individual  in  rags. 
The  bearded  man  had  on  a  fez,  the  other's  head  was  bare,  and 
the  snow  had  lodged  in  his  hair. 

By  thrusting  his  head  over  the  wall,  Marius  could  hear  their 
'emarks. 

The  hairy  one  jogged  the  other  man's  elbow  and  said : — 

" — With  the  assistance  of  Patron-Minette,  it  can't  fail." 

"Do  you  think  so  ?"  said  the  bearded  man. 

And  the  long-haired  one  began  again : — 

"It's  as  good  as  a  warrant  for  each  one,  of  five  hundred  balls, 
and  the  worst  that  can  happen  is  five  years,  six  years,  ten  years 
at  the  most !" 

The  other  replied  with  some  hesitation,  and  shivering  be- 
neath his  fez  :— 

"That's  a  real  thing.    You  can't  go  against  such  things." 

"I  tell  you  that  the  affair  can't  go  wrong,"  resumed  the  long- 
haired man.  "Father  What's-his-name's  team  will  be  already 
harnessed." 

Then  they  began  to  discuss  a  melodrama  that  they  had  seen 
on  the  preceding  evening  at  the  Gaite  Theatre. 

Marius  went  his  way. 

It  seemed  to  him  that  the  mysterious  words  of  these  men,  so 
strangely  hidden  behind  that  wall,  and  crouching  in  the  snow, 
could  not  but  bear  some  relation  to  Jondrette's  abominable 
projects.  That  must  be  the  affair. 

He  directed  his  course  towards  the  faubourg  Saint-Marceau 
and  asked  at  the  first  shop  he  came  to  where  he  could  find  a 
commissary  of  police. 

He  was  directed  to  Rue  de  Pontoise,  No.  14. 

Thither  Marius  betook  himself. 

As  he  passed  a  baker's  shop,  he  bought  a  two-penny  roll,  and 
ate  it,  foreseeing  that  he  should  not  dine. 

On  the  way,  he  rendered  justice  to  Providence.  He  reflected 
that  had  he  not  given  his  five  francs  to  the  Jondrette  girl  in 


THE  WICKED  POOR  MAX  go  5 

the  morning,  he  would  have  followed  M.  Leblanc's  fiacre,  and 
consequently  have  remained  ignorant  of  everything,  and  that 
there  would  have  been  no  obstacle  to  the  trap  of  the  Jondrettes 
and  that  M.  Leblanc  would  have  been  lost,  and  his  daughter 
with  him,  no  doubt. 

CHAPTER    XIV 

IN    WHICH  A  POLICE  AGENT  BESTOWS  TWO  FI8TFULS  ON  A 
LAWYER 

ON  arriving  at  No.  14,  Rue  de  Pontoise,  he  ascended  to  the 
first  floor  and  inquired  for  the  commissary  of  police. 

"The  commissary  of  police  is  not  here,"  said  a  clerk ;  "but 
there  is  an  inspector  who  takes  his  place.  Would  you  like  to 
speak  to  him ?  Are  you  in  haste?" 

"Yes,"  said  Marius. 

The  clerk  introduced  him  into  the  commissary's  office. 
There  stood  a  tall  man  behind  a  grating,  leaning  against  a 
stove,  and  holding  up  with  both  hands  the  tails  of  a  vast  top- 
coat, with  three  collars.  His  face  was  square,  with  a  thin,  firm 
mouth,  thick,  gray,  and  very  ferocious  whiskers,  and  a  look 
that  was  enough  to  turn  your  pockets  inside  out.  Of  that 
glance  it  might  have  been  well  said,  not  that  it  penetrated,  but 
that  it  searched. 

This  man's  air  was  not  much  less  ferocious  nor  less  terrible 
than  Jondrette's ;  the  dog  is,  at  times,  no  less  terrible  to  meet 
than  the  wolf. 

"What  do  you  want?"  he  said  to  Marius,  without  adding 
"monsieur." 

"Is  this  Monsieur  le  Commissaire  de  Police?" 

"He  is  absent.    I  am  here  in  his  stead." 

"The  matter  is  very  private." 

"Then  speak." 

"And  great  haste  is  required." 

"Then  speak  quick." 

This  calm,  abrupt  man  was  both  terrifying  and  reassuring 


226  MARIU8 

at  one  and  the  same  time.  He  inspired  fear  and  confidence. 
Marius  related  the  adventure  to  him:  That  a  person  with 
whom  he  was  not  acquainted  otherwise  than  by  sight,  was  to 
be  inveigled  into  a  trap  that  very  evening ;  that,  as  he  occupied 
the  room  adjoining  the  den,  he,  Marius  Pontmercy,  a  lawyer, 
had  heard  the  whole  plot  through  the  partition;  that  the 
wretch  who  had  planned  the  trap  was  a  certain  Jondrette;  that 
there  would  be  accomplices,  probably  some  prowlers  of  the 
barriers,  among  others  a  certain  Panchaud,  alias  Printanier, 
alias  Bigrenaille;  that  Jondrette's  daughters  were  to  lie  in 
wait;  that  there  was  no  way  of  warning  the  threatened  man, 
since  he  did  not  even  know  his  name;  and  that,  finally,  all  this 
was  to  be  carried  out  at  six  o'clock  that  evening,  at  the  most 
deserted  point  of  the  Boulevard  de  1'Hopital,  in  house  No. 
50-52. 

At  the  sound  of  this  number,  the  inspector  raised  his  head, 
and  said  coldly: — 

"So  it  is  in  the  room  at  the  end  of  the  corridor?" 

"Precisely,"  answered  Marius,  and  he  added :  "Are  you 
acquainted  with  that  house?" 

The  inspector  remained  silent  for  a  moment,  then  replied, 
as  he  warmed  the  heel  of  his  boot  at  the  door  of  the  stove : — 

"Apparently." 

He  went  on,  muttering  between  his  teeth,  and  not  address- 
ing Marius  so  much  as  his  cravat : — 

"Patron-Minette  must  have  had  a  hand  in  this." 

This  word  struck  Marius. 

"Patron-Minette,"  said  he,  "I  did  hear  that  word  pro- 
nounced, in  fact." 

And  he  repeated  to  the  inspector  the  dialogue  between  the 
long-haired  man  and  the  bearded  man  in  the  snow  behind  the 
wall  of  the  Rue  du  Petit-Banquier. 

The  inspector  muttered : — 

"The  long-haired  man  must  be  Brujon,  and  the  bearded  one 
Demi-Liard,  alias  Deux-Milliards." 

He  had  dropped  his  eyelids  again,  and  became  absorbed  in 
thought. 


THE  WICKED  POOR  MAN  227 

"As  for  leather  What's-his-namo,  T  think  I  recognize  him. 
Hero,  I've  burned  my  coat.  They  always  have  too  much  fire  in 
these  cursed  stoves.  Number  50-52.  Former  property  of 
Gorbeau." 

Then  lie  glanced  at  Marius. 

"You  saw  only  that  bearded  and  that  long-haired  man?" 

"And  Panchaiid." 

"You  didn't  see  a  little  imp  of  a  dandy  prowling  about  the 
premises  ?" 

"No." 

"Nor  a  big  lump  of  matter,  resembling  an  elephant  in  the 
Jardin  dcs  Plantes  ?" 

"No." 

"Nor  a  scamp  with  the  air  of  an  old  red  tail?" 

"No." 

"As  for  the  fourth,  no  one  sees  him,  not  even  his  adjutants, 
clerks,  and  employees.  It  is  not  surprising  that  you  did  not 
see  him." 

"No.    Who  are  all  those  persons?"  asked  Marius. 

The  inspector  answered : — 

"Besides,  this  is  not  the  time  for  them." 

He  relapsed  into  silence,  then  resumed : — 

"50-52.  I  know  that  barrack.  Impossible  to  conceal  our- 
selves inside  it  without  the  artists  seeing  us,  and  then  they  will 
get  off  simply  by  countermanding  the  vaudeville.  They  are  so 
modest !  An  audience  embarrasses  them.  None  of  that,  none 
of  that.  I  want  to  hear  them  sing  and  make  them  dance/' 

This  monologue  concluded,  he  turned  to  Marius,  aiid  de- 
manded, gazing  at  him  intently  the  while : — 

"Are  you  afraid  ?" 

"Of  what?"  said  Marius. 

"Of  these  men  ?" 

"No  more  than  yourself !"  retorted  Marius  rudely,  who  had 
begun  to  notice  that  this  police  agent  had  not  yet  said  "mon- 
sieur" to  him. 

The  inspector  stared  still  more  intently  at  Marius,  and  con- 
tinued with  sententious  solemnitv  : — 


228  MARIUB 

"There,  you  speak  like  a  brave  man,  and  like  an  honest 
man.  Courage  does  not  fear  crime,  and  honesty  does  not  fear 
authority." 

Marius  interrupted  him  : — 

"That  is  well,  but  what  do  you  intend  to  do  ?" 

The  inspector  contented  himself  with  the  remark : — 

"The  lodgers  have  pass-keys  with  which  to  get  in  at  night. 
You  must  have  one." 

"Yes,"  said  Marius. 

"Have  you  it  about  you  ?" 

"Yes."' 

"Give  it  to  me,"  said  the  inspector. 

Marius  took  his  key  from  his  waistcoat  pocket,  handed  it  to 
the  inspector  and  added  : — 

"If  you  will  take  my  advice,  you  will  come  in  force." 

The  inspector  cast  on  Marius  such  a  glance  as  Voltaire 
might  have  bestowed  on  a  provincial  academician  who  had 
suggested  a  rhyme  to  him;  with  one  movement  he  plunged  his 
hands,  which  were  enormous,  into  the  two  immense  pockets  of 
his  top-coat,  and  pulled  out  two  small  steel  pistols,  of  the  sort 
called  "knock-me-downs."  Then  he  presented  them  to  Marius, 
saying  rapidly,  in  a  curt  tone : — 

"Take  these.  Go  home.  Hide  in  your  chamber,  so  that  you 
may  be  supposed  to  have  gone  out.  They  are  loaded.  Each 
one  carries  two  balls.  You  will  keep  watch;  there  is  a  hole  in 
the  wall,  as  you  have  informed  me.  These  men  will  come. 
Leave  them  to  their  own  devices  for  a  time.  When  you  think 
matters  have  reached  a  crisis,  and  that  it  is  time  to  put  a 
stop  to  them,  fire  a  shot.  Not  too  soon.  The  rest  concerns  me. 
A  shot  into  the  ceiling,  the  air,  no  matter  where.  Above  all 
things,  not  too  soon.  Wait  until  they  begin  to  put  their  project 
into  execution;  you  are  a  lawyer;  you  know  the  proper  point." 
Marius  took  the  pistols  and  put  them  in  the  side  pocket  of  his 
coat. 

"That  makes  a  lump  that  can  be  seen,"  said  the  inspector. 
"Put  them  in  your  trousers  pocket." 

Marius  hid  the  pistols  in  his  trousers  pockets. 


THE  WICKED  POOR  MAJf  229 

"Now,"  pursued  the  inspector,  "there  is  not  a  minute  more 
to  be  lost  by  any  one.  What  time  is  it?  Half -past  two.  Seven 
o'clock  is  the  hour?" 

"Six  o'clock,"  answered  Marius. 

"I  have  plenty  of  time,"  said  the  inspector,  "but  no  more 
than  enough.  Don't  forget  anything  that  I  have  said  to  you. 
Bang.  A  pistol  shot." 

"Rest  easy,"  said  Marius. 

And  as  Marius  laid  his  hand  on  the  handle  of  the  door  on 
his  way  out,  the  inspector  called  to  him: — 

"By  the  way,  if  you  have  occasion  for  my  services  between 
now  and  then,  come  or  send  here.  You  will  ask  for  Inspector 
Javert." 

CHAPTER    XV 

JONDRETTE  MAKES  HIS  PURCHASES 

A  FEW  moments  later,  about  three  o'clock,  Courfeyrac 
chanced  to  be  passng  along  the  Rue  Mouffetard  in  company 
with  Bossuet.  The  snow  had  redoubled  in  violence,  and  filled 
the  air.  Bossuet  was  just  saying  to  Courfeyrac:— 

"One  would  say,  to  see  all  these  snow-flakes  fall,  that  there 
was  a  plague  of  white  butterflies  in  heaven."  All  at  once, 
Bossuet  caught  sight  of  Marius  coming  up  the  street  towards 
the  barrier  with  a  peculiar  air. 

"Hold !"  said  Bossuet.     "There's  Marius." 

"I  saw  him,"  said  Courfeyrac.  "Don't  let's  speak  to 
him." 

"Why?" 

"He  is  busy." 

"With  what?" 

"Don't  vou  see  his  air?" 

"What  air?" 

"He  has  the  air  of  a  man  who  is  following  some  one." 

"That's  true,"  said  Bossuet. 

"Just  see  the  eyes  he  is  making !"  said  Courfeyrac. 


230  MARIUS 

"But  who  the  deuce  is  he  following?" 

"Some  fine,  flowery  bonneted  wench !    He's  in  love." 

"But,"  observed  Bossuet,  "I  don't  see  any  wench  nor  any 
flowery  bonnet  in  the  street.  There's  not  a  woman 
round." 

Courfeyrac  took  a  survey,  and  exclaimed: — 

"He's  following  a  man  !" 

A  man,  in  fact,  wearing  a  gray  cap,  and  whose  gray  beard 
could  be  distinguished,  although  they  only  saw  his  back,  was 
walking  along  about  twenty  paces  in  advance  of  Marius. 

This  man  was  dressed  in  a  great-coat  which  was  perfectly 
new  and  too  large  for  him,  and  in  a  frightful  pair  of  trousers 
all  hanging  in  rags  and  black  with  mud. 

Bossuet  burst  out  laughing. 

"Who  is  that  man?" 

"He?"  retorted  Courfeyrac,  'Tie's  a  poet.  Poets  are  very 
fond  of  wearing  the  trousers  of  dealers  in  rabbit  skins  and  the 
overcoats  of  peers  of  France." 

"Let's  see  where  Marius  will  go,"  said  Bossuet;  "let's  see 
where  the  man  is  going,  let's  follow  them,  hey?" 

"Bossuet !"  exclaimed  Courfeyrac,  "eagle  of  Meaux !  You 
are  a  prodigious  brute.  Follow  a  man  who  is  following 
another  man,  indeed !" 

They  retraced  their  steps. 

Marius  had,  in  fact,  seen  Jondrette  passing  along  the  Rue 
Mouffetard,  and  was  spying  on  his  proceedings. 

Jondrette  walked  straight  ahead,  without  a  suspicion  that 
he  was  already  held  by  a  glance. 

He  quitted  the  Rue  Mouffetard,  and  Marius  saw  him  enter 
one  of  the  most  terrible  hovels  in  the  Rue  Gracieu?e;  he  re- 
mained there  about  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  then  returned  to  the 
Rue  Mouffetard.  He  halted  at  an  ironmonger's  shop,  which 
then  stood  at  the  corner  of  the  Rue  Pierre-Lombard,  and  a 
few  minutes  later  Marius  saw  him  emerge  from  the  shop, 
holding  in  his  hand  a  huge  cold  chisel  with  a  white  wood 
handle,  which  he  concealed  beneath  his  great-coat.  At  the 
top  of  the  Rue  Petit-Gentilly  he  turned  to  the  left  and  pro- 


Till:  WICKED  POOR  MAN  231 

cecdcd  rapidly  to  the  Rue  du  Petit-Banquier.  The  day  was 
declining;  the  snow,  which  had  ceased  for  a  moment,  had 
just  begun  again.  Marius  posted  himself  on  the  watch  at  the 
very  corner  of  the  Rue  du  Petit-Banquier,  which  was  deserted, 
a6  usual,  and  did  not  follow  Jondrette  into  it.  It  was  lucky 
that  he  did  so,  for,  on  arriving  in  the  vicinity  of  the  wall 
where  Marius  had  heard  the  long-haired  man  and  the  bearded 
man  conversing,  Jondrette  turned  round,  made  sure  that  no 
one  was  following  him,  did  not  see  him,  then  sprang  across 
the  wall  and  disappeared. 

The  waste  land  bordered  by  this  wall  communicated  with 
the  back  yard  of  an  ex-livery  stable-keeper  of  bad  repute,  who 
had  failed  and  who  still  kept  a  few  old  single-seated  berlins 
under  his  sheds. 

Marius  thought  that  it  would  be  wise  to  profit  by  Jon- 
drctte's  absence  to  return  home ;  moreover,  it  was  growing 
late;  every  evening,  Ma'am  Bougon  when  she  set  out  for  her 
dish-washing  in  town,  had  a  habit  of  locking  the  door,  which 
was  always  closed  at  dusk.  Marius  had  given  his  key  to  the 
inspector  of  police;  it  was  important,  therefore,  that  he  should 
make  haste. 

Evening  had  arrived,  night  had  almost  closed  in;  on  the 
horizon  and  in  the  immensity  of  space,  there  remained 
but  one  spot  illuminated  by  the  sun,  and  that  was  the 
moon. 

It  was  rising  in  a  ruddy  glow  behind  the  low  dome  of 
Salpetriere. 

Marius  returned  to  No.  50-52  with  great  strides.  The  door 
was  still  open  when  he  arrived.  He  mounted  the  stairs  on 
tip-toe  and  glided  along  the  wall  of  the  corridor  to  his 
chamber.  This  corridor,  as  the  reader  will  remember,  was 
bordered  on  both  sides  by  attics,  all  of  which  were,  for  the 
moment,  empty  and  to  let.  Ma'am  Bougon  was  in  the  habit 
of  leaving  all  the  doors  open.  As  he  passed  one  of  these 
attics,  Marius  thought  he  perceived  in  the  uninhabited  cell 
the  motionless  heads  of  four  men,  vaguely  lighted  up  by  a 
remnant  of  daylight,  falling  through  a  dormer  window. 


232  MARIVS 

Marius  made  no  attempt  to  see,  not  wishing  to  be  seen  him- 
self. He  succeeded  in  reaching  his  chamber  without  being 
seen  and  without  making  any  noise.  It  was  high  time.  A 
moment  later  he  heard  Ma'am  Bougon  take  her  departure, 
locking  the  door  of  the  house  behind  her. 


CHAPTER   XVI 

IN   WHICH   WILL  BE   FOUND  THE  WORDS   TO   AN   ENGLISH   AIR 
WHICH  WAS  IN  FASHION  IN   1832 

MARIUS  seated  himself  on  his  bed.  It  might  have  been 
half-past  five  o'clock.  Only  half  an  hour  separated  him  from 
what  was  about  to  happen.  He  heard  the  beating  of  his 
arteries  as  one  hears  the  ticking  of  a  watch  in  the  dark.  He 
thought  of  the  double  march  which  was  going  on  at  that 
moment  in  the  dark, — crime  advancing  on  one  side,  justice 
coming  up  on  the  other.  He  was  not  afraid,  but  he  could 
not  think  without  a  shudder  of  what  was  about  to  take  place. 
As  is  the  case  with  all  those  who  are  suddenly  assailed  by  an 
unforeseen  adventure,  the  entire  day  produced  upon  him  the 
effect  of  a  dream,  and  in  order  to  persuade  himself  that  he 
was  not  the  prey  of  a  nightmare,  he  had  to  feel  the  cold 
barrels  of  the  steel  pistols  in  his  trousers  pockets. 

It  was  no  longer  snowing;  the  moon  disengaged  itself  more 
and  more  clearly  from  the  mist,  and  its  light,  mingled  with 
the  white  reflection  of  the  snow  which  had  fallen,  communi- 
cated to  the  chamber  a  sort  of  twilight  aspect. 

There  was  a  light  in  the  Jondrette  den.  Marius  saw  the 
hole  in  the  wall  shining  with  a  reddish  glow  which  seemed 
bloody  to  him. 

It  was  true  that  the  light  could  not  be  produced  by  a  candle. 
However,  there  was  not  a  sound  in  the  Jondrette  quarters,  not 
a  soul  was  moving  there,  not  a  soul  speaking,  not  a  breath ;  the 
silence  was  glacial  and  profound,  and  had  it  not  been  for  that 
light,  he  might  have  thought  himself  next  door  to  a  sepulchre. 


THE  WICKED  POOR  MAN  233 

Marius  softly  removed  his  boots  and  pushed  them  under 
his  bed. 

Several  minutes  elapsed.  Marius  heard  the  lower  door  turn 
on  its  hinges;  a  heavy  step  mounted  the  staircase,  and 
hastened  along  the  corridor;  the  latch  of  the  hovel  was  noisily 
lifted;  it  was  Jondrette  returning. 

Instantly,  several  voices  arose.  The  whole  family  was  in 
the  garret.  Only,  it  had  been  silent  in  the  master's  absence, 
like  wolf  whelps  in  the  absence  of  the  wolf. 

"It's  I,"  said  he. 

"Good  evening,  daddy,"  yelped  the  girls. 

"Well?"  said  the  mother. 

"All's  going  first-rate,"  responded  Jondrette,  "but  my  feet 
are  beastly  cold.  Good!  You  have  dressed  up.  You  have 
done  well !  You  must  inspire  confidence." 

"All  ready  to  go  out." 

"Don't  forget  what  I  told  you.  You  will  do  everything 
sure  ?" 

"Best  easy." 

"Because — "  said  Jondrette.  And  he  left  the  phrase  un- 
finished. 

Marius  heard  him  lay  something  heavy  on  the  table,  prob- 
ably the  chisel  which  he  had  purchased. 

"By  the  way,"  said  Jondrette,  "have  you  been  eating  here  ?" 

"Yes,"  said  the  mother.  "I  got  three  large  potatoes  and 
some  salt.  I  took  advantage  of  the  fire  to  cook  them." 

"Good,"  returned  Jondrette.  "To-morrow  I  will  take  you 
out  to  dine  with  me.  We  will  have  a  duck  and  fixings.  You 
shall  dine  like  Charles  the  Tenth ;  all  is  going  well !" 

Then  he  added: — 

"The  mouse-trap  is  open.    The  cats  are  there." 

He  lowered  his  voice  still  further,  and  said : — 

"Put  this  in  the  fire." 

Marius  heard  a  sound  of  charcoal  being  knocked  with  the 
tongs  or  some  iron  utensil,  and  Jondrette  continued  : — 

"Have  you  greased  the  hinges  of  the-  door  so  that  they  will 
not  squeak?" 


034  MARIU8 

"Yes,"  replied  the  mother. 

"What  time  is  it?" 

"Nearly  six.  The  half-hour  struck  from  Saint-Medard  a 
while  ago." 

"The  devil!"  ejaculated  Jondrette;  "the  children  must  go 
and  watch.  Come  you.  do  you  listen  here." 

A  whispering  ensued. 

Jondrette's  voice  became  audible  again: — 

"Has  old  Bougon  left?" 

"Yes,"  said  the  mother. 

"Are  you  sure  that  there  is  no  one  in  our  neighbor's 
room  ?" 

"He  has  not  been  in  all  day,  and  you  know  very  well  that 
this  is  his  dinner  hour." 

"You  are  sure?" 

"Sure." 

"All  the  same,"  said  Jondrette,  "there's  no  harm  in  going 
to  see  whether  he  is  there.  Here,  my  girl,  take  the  candle  and 
go  there." 

Marius  fell  on  his  hands  and  knees  and  crawled  silently 
under  his  bed. 

Hardly  had  he  concealed  himself,  when  he  perceived  a  light 
through  the  crack  of  his  door. 

"P'pa,"  cried  a  voice,  "he  is  not  in  here." 

He  recognized  the  voice  of  the  eldest  daughter. 

"Did  you  go  in?"  demanded  her  father. 

"No,"  replied  the  girl,  "but  as  his  key  is  in  the  door,  he 
must  be  out." 

The  father  exclaimed: — 

"Go  in,  nevertheless." 

The  door  opened,  and  Marius  saw  the  tall  Jondrette  come 
in  with  a  candle  in  her  hand.  She  was  as  she  had  been  in  the 
morning,  only  still  more  repulsive  in  this  light. 

She  walked  straight  up  to  the  bed.  Marius  endured  an 
indescribable  moment  of  anxiety ;  but  near  the  bed  there  was 
a  mirror  nailed  to  the  wall,  and  it  was  thither  that  she  was 
directing  her  steps.  She  raised  herself  on  tiptoe  and  looked 


THE  WICKED  POO  If  MAN  935 

at  herself  in  it.     In  the  neighboring  room,  the  sound  of  iron 
articles  being  moved  was  audible. 

She  smoothed  her  hair  with  the  palm  of  her  hand,  and 
smiled  into  the  mirror,  humming  with  her  cracked  and  sepul- 
chral voice : — 

Nos  amoura  ont  dure'  toute  une  semaine,1 
Mais  que  du  bonheur  IPS  instants  sont  courts! 
S'adorer  huit  jours,  c'  f-tait  bien  la  pcinc! 
Le  temps  des  amours  devait  durer  toujours! 
Devrait  durer  toujours!  devrait  durer  toujours! 

In  the  meantime,  Marius  trembled.  It  seemed  impossible 
to  him  that  she  should  not  hear  his  breathing. 

She  stepped  to  the  window  and  looked  out  with  the  half- 
foolish  way  she  had. 

"How  ugly  Paris  is  when  it  has  put  on  a  white  chemise !" 
said  she. 

She  returned  to  the  mirror  and  began  again  to  put  on  airs 
before  it,  scrutinizing  herself  full-face  and  three-quarters  face 
in  turn. 

"Well !"  cried  her  father,  "what  are  you  about  there?" 

"I  am  looking  under  the  bed  and  the  furniture,"  she  re- 
plied, continuing  to  arrange  her  hair;  "there's  no  one 
here." 

"Booby !"  yelled  her  father.  "Come  here  this  minute ! 
And  don't  waste  any  time  about  it !" 

"Coming !  Coming !"  said  she.  "One  has  no  time  for  any- 
thing in  this  hovel !" 

She  hummed: — 

Vous  me  quittez  pour  aller  a  la  gloire;1 
Mon  triste  coeur  suivra  partout. 

She  cast  a  parting  glance  in  the  mirror  and  went  out, 
shutting  the  door  behind  her. 

'Our  love  has  lasted  a  whole  week,  but  how  short  are  the  instants 
of  happiness!  To  adore  each  other  for  eight  days  was  hardly  worth 
the  while!  The  time  of  love  should  last  forever. 

2You  leave  me  to  go  to  glory;  my  sad  heart  will  follow  you  every- 
where. 


936  MAKIU8 

A  moment  more,  and  Marius  heard  the  sound  of  the  two 
young  girls'  bare  feet  in  the  corridor,  and  Jondrette's  voice 
shouting  to  them  : — 

"Pay  strict  heed  !  One  on  the  side  of  the  barrier,  the  other 
at  the  corner  of  the  Rue  du  Petit-Banquier.  Don't  lose  sight 
for  a  moment  of  the  door  of  this  house,  and  the  moment  you 
see  anything,  rush  here  on  the  instant !  as  hard  as  you  can  go ! 
You  have  a  key  to  get  in." 

The  eldest  girl  grumbled : — 

"The  idea  of  standing  watch  in  the  snow  barefoot !" 

"To-morrow  you  shall  have  some  dainty  little  green  silk 
boots !"  said  the  father. 

They  ran  down  stairs,  and  a  few  seconds  later  the  shock  of 
the  outer  door  as  it  banged  to  announced  that  they  were 
outside. 

There  now  remained  in  the  house  only  Marius,  the  Jon- 
drettes  and  probably,  also,  the  mysterious  persons  of  whom 
Marius  had  caught  a  glimpse  in  the  twilight,  behind  the  door 
of  the  unused  attic. 


CHAPTER    XVII 

THE  USE  MADE  OF  MARIOS'  FIVE-FRANC  PIECE 

MARIUS  decided  that  the  moment  had  now  arrived  when  he 
must  resume  his  post  at  his  observatory.  In  a  twinkling, 
and  with  the  agility  of  his  age,  he  had  reached  the  hole  in 
the  partition. 

He  looked. 

The  interior  of  the  Jondrette  apartment  presented  a  curious 
aspect,  and  Marius  found  an  explanation  of  the  singular  light 
which  he  had  noticed.  A  candle  was  burning  in  a  candlestick 
covered  with  verdigris,  but  that  was  not  what  really  lighted  the 
chamber.  The  hovel  was  completely  illuminated,  as  it  were,  by 
the  reflection  from  a  rather  large  sheet-iron  brazier  standing  in 
the  fireplace,  and  filled  with  burning  charcoal,  the  brazier  pre- 


THE  WICKED  POOR  MAN  237 

pared  by  the  Jondrette  woman  that  morning.  The  charcoal 
was  glowing  hot  and  the  brazier  was  red ;  a  blue  flame  flickered 
over  it,  and  helped  him  to  make  out  the  form  of  the  chisel  pur- 
chased by  Jondrette  in  the  Rue  Pierre- Lombard,  where  it  had 
been  thrust  into  the  brazier  to  heat.  In  one  corner,  near  the 
door,  and  as  though  prepared  for  some  definite  use,  two  heaps 
were  visible,  which  appeared  to  be,  the  one  a  heap  of  old  iron, 
the  other  a  heap  of  ropes.  All  this  would  have  caused  the  mind 
of  a  person  who  knew  nothing  of  what  was  in  preparation,  to 
waver  between  a  very  sinister  and  a  very  simple  idea.  The 
lair  thus  lighted  up  more  resembled  a  forge  than  a  mouth  of 
hell,  but  Jondrette,  in  this  light,  had  rather  the  air  of  a  demon 
than  of  a  smith. 

The  heat  of  the  brazier  was  so  great,  that  the  candle  on  the 
table  was  melting  on  the  side  next  the  chafing-dish,  and  was 
drooping  over.  An  old  dark-lantern  of  copper,  worthy  of 
Diogenes  turned  Cartouche,  stood  on  the  chimney-piece. 

The  brazier,  placed  in  the  fireplace  itself,  beside  the  nearly 
extinct  brands,  sent  its  vapors  up  the  chimney,  and  gave  out 
no  odor. 

The  moon,  entering  through  the  four  panes  of  the  window, 
cast  its  whiteness  into  the  crimson  and  flaming  garret ;  and  to 
the  poetic  spirit  of  Marius,  who  was  dreamy  even  in  the 
moment  of  action,  it  was  like  a  thought  of  heaven  mingled 
with  the  misshapen  reveries  of  earth. 

A  breath  of  air  which  made  its  way  in  through  the  open 
pane,  helped  to  dissipate  the  smell  of  the  charcoal  and  to  con- 
ceal the  presence  of  the  brazier. 

The  Jondrette  lair  was,  if  the  reader  recalls  what  we  have 
said  of  the  Gorbeau  building,  admirably  chosen  to  serve  as  the 
theatre  of  a  violent  and  sombre  deed,  and  as  the  envelope  for 
a  crime.  It  was  the  most  retired  chamber  in  the  most  isolated 
house  on  the  most  deserted  boulevard  in  Paris.  If  the  system 
of  ambush  and  traps  had  not  already  existed,  they  would  have 
been  invented  there. 

The  whole  thickness  of  a  house  and  a  multitude  of  unin- 
habited rooms  separated  this  den  from  the  boulevard,  and  the 


238  UARIU8 

only  window  that  existed  opened  on  waste  lands  enclosed  with 
walls  and  palisades. 

Jondrette  had  lighted  his  pipe,  seated  himself  on  the  seatless 
chair,  and  was  engaged  in  smoking.  His  wife  was  talking  to 
him  in  a  low  tone. 

If  Marius  had  been  Courfeyrac,  that  is  to  say,  one  of  those 
men  who  laugh  on  every  occasion  in  life,  he  would  have  burst 
with  laughter  when  his  gaze  fell  on  the  Jondrette  woman.  She 
had  on  a  black  bonnet  with  plumes  not  unlike  the  hats  of  the 
heralds-at-arms  at  the  coronation  of  Charles  X.,  an  immense 
tartan  shawl  over  her  knitted  petticoat,  and  the  man's  shoes 
which  her  daughter  had  scorned  in  the  morning.  It  was  this 
toilette  which  had  extracted  from  Jondrette  the  exclamation : 
"Good !  You  have  dressed  up.  You  have  done  well.  You 
must  inspire  confidence !" 

As  for  Jondrette,  he  had  not  taken  off  the  new  surtout, 
which  was  too  large  for  him,  and  which  M.  Leblanc  had  given 
him,  and  his  costume  continued  to  present  that  contrast  of  coat 
and  trousers  which  constituted  the  ideal  of  a  poet  in  Courfey- 
rac 's  eyes. 

All  at  once,  Jondrette  lifted  up  his  voice : — 

"By  the  way !  Now  that  I  think  of  it.  In  this  weather,  he 
will  come  in  a  carriage.  Light  the  lantern,  take  it  and  go 
down  stairs.  You  will  stand  behind  the  lower  door.  The  very 
moment  that  you  hear  the  carriage  stop,  you  will  open  the 
door,  instantly,  he  will  come  up,  you  will  light  the  staircase 
and  the  corridor,  and  when  he  enters  here,  you  will  go  down 
stairs  again  as  speedily  as  possible,  you  will  pay  the  coachman, 
and  dismiss  the  fiacre. 

"And  the  money  ?"  inquired  the  woman. 

Jondrette  fumbled  in  his  trousers  pocket  and  handed  her 
five  francs. 

"What's  this?"  she  exclaimed. 

Jondrette  replied  with  dignity : — 

"That  is  the  monarch  which  our  neighbor  gave  us  this  morn- 
ing." 

And  he  added : — 


THE  WICKED  POOR  MAX  230 

"Do  you  know  what?    Two  chairs  will  be  needed  here." 

"What  for?" 

"To  sit  on." 

Marius  felt  a  cold  chill  pass  through  his  limbs  at  hearing 
this  mild  answer  from  Jondrette. 

"Pardicu !  I'll  go  and  get  one  of  our  neighbor's." 

And  with  a  rapid  movement,  she  opened  the  door  of  the  den, 
and  went  out  into  the  corridor. 

Marius  absolutely  had  not  the  time  to  descend  from  the  com- 
mode, reach  his  bed,  and  conceal  himself  beneath  it. 

"Take  the  candle,"  cried  Jondrette. 

"No,"  said  she,  "it  would  embarrass  me,  I  have  the  two 
chairs  to  carry.  There  is  moonlight." 

Marius  heard  Mother  Jondrette's  heavy  hand  fumbling  at 
his  lock  in  the  dark.  The  door  opened.  He  remained  nailed 
to  the  spot  with  the  shock  and  with  horror. 

The  Jondrette  entered. 

The  dormer  window  permitted  the  entrance  of  a  ray  of 
moonlight  between  two  blocks  of  shadow.  One  of  these  blocks 
of  shadow  entirely  covered  the  wall  against  which  Marius  was 
leaning,  so  that  he  disappeared  within  it. 

Mother  Jondrette  raised  her  eyes,  did  not  see  Marius,  took 
the  two  chairs,  the  only  ones  which  Marius  possessed,  and  went 
away,  letting  the  door  fall  heavily  to  behind  her. 

She  re-entered  the  lair. 

"Here  are  the  two  chairs." 

"And  here  is  the  lantern.    Go  down  as  quick  as  you  can." 

She  hastily  obeyed,  and  Jondrette  was  left  alone. 

He  placed  the  two  chairs  on  opposite  sides  of  the  table, 
turned  the  chisel  in  the  brazier,  set  in  front  of  the  fireplace  an 
old  screen  which  masked  the  chafing-dish,  then  went  to  the 
corner  where  lay  the  pile  of  rope,  and  bent  down  as  though  to 
examine  something.  Marius  then  recognized  the  fact,  that 
what  he  had  taken  for  a  shapeless  mass  was  a  very  well-made 
rope-ladder,  with  wooden  rungs  and  two  hooks  with  which  to 
attach  it. 

This  ladder,  and  some  large  tools,  veritable  masses  of  iron, 


040  MARIU8 

which  were  mingled  with  the  old  iron  piled  up  behind  the  door, 
had  not  been  in  the  Jondrette  hovel  in  the  morning,  and  had 
evidently  been  brought  thither  in  the  afternoon,  during  Ma- 
rius'  absence. 

"Those  are  the  utensils  of  an  edge-tool  maker,"  thought 
Marius. 

Had  Marius  been  a  little  more  learned  in  this  line,  he  would 
have  recognized  in  what  he  took  for  the  engines  of  an  edge-tool 
maker,  certain  instruments  which  will  force  a  lock  or  pick  a 
lock,  and  others  which  will  cut  or  slice,  the  two  families  of 
tools  which  burglars  call  cadets  and  fauchants. 

The  fireplace  and  the  two  chairs  were  exactly  opposite  Ma- 
rius. The  brazier  being  concealed,  the  only  light  in  the  room 
was  now  furnished  by  the  candle;  the  smallest  bit  of  crockery 
on  the  table  or  on  the  chimney-piece  cast  a  large  shadow. 
There  was  something  indescribably  calm,  threatening,  and 
hideous  about  this  chamber.  One  felt  that  there  existed  in  it 
the  anticipation  of  something  terrible. 

Jondrette  had  allowed  his  pipe  to  go  out,  a  serious  sign  of 
preoccupation,  and  had  again  seated  himself.  The  candle 
brought  out  the  fierce  and  the  fine  angles  of  his  countenance. 
He  indulged  in  scowls  and  in  abrupt  unfoldings  of  the  right 
hand,  as  though  he  were  responding  to  the  last  counsels  of  a 
sombre  inward  monologue.  In  the  course  of  one  of  these  dark 
replies  which  he  was  making  to  himself,  he  pulled  the  table 
drawer  rapidly  towards  him,  took  out  a  long  kitchen  knife 
which  was  concealed  there,  and  tried  the  edge  of  its  blade  on 
his  nail.  That  done,  he  put  the  knife  back  in  the  drawer  and 
shut  it. 

Marius,  on  his  side,  grasped  the  pistol  in  his  right  pocket, 
drew  it  out  and  cocked  it. 

The  pistol  emitted  a  sharp,  clear  click,  as  he  cocked  it. 

Jondrette  started,  half  rose,  listened  a  moment,  then  began 
to  laugh  and  said : — 

"What  a  fool  I  am  !    It's  the  partition  cracking !" 

Marius  kept  the  pistol  in  his  hand. 


THE   WICKED  POOR  MAN  241 

CHAPTER    XVIII 

MARIUS'   TWO   CHAIRS    FORM    A   VI8-A-VI8 

SUDDENLY,  the  distant  and  melancholy  vibration  of  a  clock 
shook  the  panes.  Six  o'clock  was  striking  from  Saint- 
Medard. 

Jondrette  marked  off  each  stroke  with  a  toss  of  his  head. 
When  the  sixth  had  struck,  he  snuffed  the  candle  with  his 
fingers. 

Then  he  began  to  pace  up  and  down  the  room,  listened  at  the 
corridor,  walked  on  again,  then  listened  once  more. 

"Provided  only  that  he  comes !"  he  muttered,  then  he  re- 
turned to  his  chair. 

He  had  hardly  reseated  himself  when  the  door  opened. 

Mother  Jondrette  had  opened  it,  and  now  remained  in  the 
corridor  making  a  horrible,  amiable  grimace,  which  one  of  the 
holes  of  the  dark-lantern  illuminated  from  below. 

"Enter,  sir,"  she  said. 

"Enter,  my  benefactor,"  repeated  Jondrette,  rising  hastily. 

M.  Leblanc  made  his  appearance. 

He  wore  an  air  of  serenity  which  rendered  him  singularly 
venerable. 

He  laid  four  louis  on  the  table. 

"Monsieur  Fabantou,"  said  he,  "this  is  for  your  rent  and 
your  most  pressing  necessities.  We  will  attend  to  the  rest  here- 
after." 

"May  God  requite  it  to  you,  my  generous  benefactor !"  said 
-Jondrette. 

And  rapidly  approaching  his  wife : — 

"Dismiss  the  carriage!" 

She  slipped  out  while  her  husband  was  lavishing  salutes  and 
offering  M.  Leblanc  a  chair.  An  instant  later  she  returned 
and  whispered  in  his  ear : — 

"  Tis  done." 

The  snow,  which  had  not  ceased  falling  since  the  morning. 


242  MARIU8 

was  so  deep  that  the  arrival  of  the  fiacre  had  not  been  audible, 
and  they  did  not  now  hear  its  departure. 

Meanwhile,  M.  Leblanc  had  seated  himself. 

Jondrette  had  taken  possession  of  the  other  chair,  facing 
M.  Leblanc. 

Now,  in  order  to  form  an  idea  of  the  scene  which  is  to  fol- 
low, let  the  reader  picture  to  himself  in  his  own  mind,  a  cold 
night,  the  solitudes  of  the  Salpetriere  covered  with  snow  and 
white  as  winding-sheets  in  the  moonlight,  the  taper-like  lights 
of  the  street  lanterns  which  shone  redly  here  and  there  along 
those  tragic  boulevards,  and  the  long  rows  of  black  elms,  not  a 
passer-by  for  perhaps  a  quarter  of  a  league  around,  the  Gor- 
beau  hovel,  at  its  highest  pitch  of  silence,  of  horror,  and  of 
darkness ;  in  that  building,  in  the  midst  of  those  solitudes,  in 
the  midst  of  that  darkness,  the  vast  Jondrette  garret  lighted  by 
a  single  candle,  and  in  that  den  two  men  seated  at  a  table,  M. 
Leblanc  tranquil,  Jondrette  smiling  and  alarming,  the  Jon- 
drette woman,  the  female  wolf,  in  one  corner,  and,  behind  the 
partition,  Marius,  invisible,  erect,  not  losing  a  word,  not  miss- 
ing a  single  movement,  his  eye  on  the  watch,  and  pistol  in 
hand. 

However,  Marius  experienced  only  an  emotion  of  horror,  but 
no  fear.  He  clasped  the  stock  of  the  pistol  firmly  and  felt  reas- 
sured. "I  shall  be  able  to  stop  that  wretch  whenever  I  please," 
he  thought. 

He  felt  that  the  police  were  there  somewhere  in  ambuscade, 
waiting  for  the  signal  agreed  upon  and  ready  to  stretch  out 
their  arm. 

Moreover,  he  was  in  hopes,  that  this  violent  encounter  be- 
tween Jondrette  and  M.  Leblanc  would  cast  some  light  on  all 
the  things  which  he  was  interested  in  learning. 


THE  WICKED  POOR  MAN  243 

CHAPTER   XIX 
OCCUPYING  ONE'S  SELF  WITH  OBSCURE  DEPTHS 

HARDLY  was  M.  Lcblanc  seated,  when  he  turned  his  eyes 
towards  the  pallets,  which  were  empty. 

"How  is  the  poor  little  wounded  girl?"  he  inquired. 

"Bad,"  replied  Jondrette  with  a  heart-broken  and  grateful 
smile,  "very  bad,  my  worthy  sir.  Her  elder  sister  has  taken 
her  to  the  Bourbe  to  have  her  hurt  dressed.  You  will  see  them 
presently ;  they  will  be  back  immediately." 

"Madame  Fabantou  seems  to  me  to  be  better,"  went  on 
M.  Leblanc,  casting  his  eyes  on  the  eccentric  costume  of  the 
Jondrette  woman,  as  she  stood  between  him  and  the  door,  as 
though  already  guarding  the  exit,  and  gazed  at  him  in  an  atti- 
tude of  menace  and  almost  of  combat. 

"She  is  dying,"  said  Jondrette.  "But  what  do  you  expect, 
sir !  She  has  so  much  courage,  that  woman  has !  She's  not  a 
woman,  she's  an  ox." 

The  Jondrette,  touched  by  his  compliment,  deprecated  it 
with  the  affected  airs  of  a  flattered  monster. 

"You  are  always  too  good  to  me,  Monsieur  Jondrette  !" 

"Jondrette !"  said  M.  Leblanc,  "I  thought  your  name  was 
Fabantou  ?" 

"Fabantou,  alias  Jondrette!"  replied  the  husband  hurriedly. 
"An  artistic  sobriquet !" 

And  launching  at  his  wife  a  shrug  of  the  shoulders  which 
M.  Leblanc  did  not  catch,  he  continued  with  an  emphatic  and 
caressing  inflection  of  voice: — 

"Ah!  we  have  had  a  happy  life  together,  this  poor  darling 
and  I !  What  would  there  be  left  for  us  if  we  had  not  that? 
We  are  so  wretched,  my  respectable  sir!  We  have  arms,  but 
there  is  no  work !  We  have  the  will,  no  work !  I  don't  know 
how  the  government  arranges  that,  but,  on  my  word  of  honor, 
sir,  I  am  not  Jacobin,  sir,  I  am  not  a  bousingot.1  I  don't  wish 

*A  democrat. 


244  MAKWH 

them  any  evil,  but  if  I  were  the  ministers,  on  my  most  sacred 
word,  things  would  be  different.  Here,  for  instance,  I  wanted 
to  have  my  girls  taught  the  trade  of  paper-box  makers.  You 
will  say  to  me:  'What!  a  trade?'  Yes!  A  trade!  A  simple 
trade !  A  bread-winner  !  What  a  fall,  my  benefactor  !  What 
a  degradation,  when  one  has  been  what  we  have  been  !  Alas ! 
There  is  nothing  left  to  us  of  our  days  of  prosperity !  One 
thing  only,  a  picture,  of  which  I  think  a  great  deal,  but  which 
I  am  willing  to  part  with,  for  I  must  live !  Item,  one  must 
live !" 

While  Jondrette  thus  talked,  with  an  apparent  incoherence 
which  detracted  nothing  from  the  thoughtful  and  sagacious 
expression  of  his  physiognomy,  Marius  raised  his  eyes,  and 
perceived  at  the  other  end  of  the  room  a  person  whom  he  had 
not  seen  before.  A  man  had  just  entered,  so  softly  that  the 
door  had  not  been  heard  to  turn  on  its  hinges.  This  man 
wore  a  violet  knitted  vest,  which  was  old,  worn,  spotted,  cut 
and  gaping  at  every  fold,  wide  trousers  of  cotton  velvet, 
wooden  shoes  on  his  feet,  no  shirt,  had  his  neck  bare,  his  bare 
arms  tattooed,  and  his  face  smeared  with  black.  He  had 
seated  himself  in  silence  on  the  nearest  bed,  and,  as  he  was 
behind  Jondrette,  he  could  only  be  indistinctly  seen. 

That  sort  of  magnetic  instinct  which  turns  aside  the  gaze, 
caused  M.  Leblanc  to  turn  round  almost  at  the  same  moment 
as  Marius.  He  could  not  refrain  from  a  gesture  of  surprise 
which  did  not  escape  Jondrette. 

"Ah !  I  see !"  exclaimed  Jondrette,  buttoning  up  his  coat 
with  an  air  of  complaisance,  "you  are  looking  at  your  over- 
coat ?  It  fits  me !  My  faith,  but  it  fits  me !" 

"Who  is  that  man  ?"  said  M.  Leblanc. 

"Him?"  ejaculated  Jondrette,  "he's  a  neighbor  of  mine. 
Don't  pay  any  attention  to  him." 

The  neighbor  was  a  singular-looking  individual.  However, 
manufactories  of  chemical  products  abound  in  the  Faubourg 
Saint-Marceau.  Many  of  the  workmen  might  have  black 
faces.  Besides  this,  M.  Lcblanc's  whole  person  was  expressive 
of  candid  and  intrepid  confidence. 


THE  WICKED  POOR  MAN  245 

He  went  on: — 

"Excuse  me;  what  were  you  saying,  M.  Fabantou?" 

"I  was  telling  you,  sir,  and  dear  protector,"  replied  Jon- 
drette,  placing  his  elbows  on  the  table  and  contemplating  M. 
Leblanc  with  steady  and  tender  eyes,  not  unlike  the  eyes  of 
the  boa-constrictor,  "I  was  telling  you,  that  I  have  a  picture 
to  sell." 

A  slight  sound  came  from  the  door.  A  second  man  had  just 
entered  and  seated  himself  on  the  bed,  behind  Jondrette. 

Like  the  first,  his  arms  were  bare,  and  he  had  a  mask  of  ink 
or  lampblack. 

Although  this  man  had,  literally,  glided  into  the  room,  he 
had  not  been  able  to  prevent  M.  Leblanc  catching  sight  of 
him. 

"Don't  mind  them,"  said  Jondrette,  "they  are  people  who 
belong  in  the  house.  So  I  was  saying,  that  there  remains  in 
my  possession  a  valuable  picture.  But  stop,  sir,  take  a  look 
at  it." 

He  rose,  went  to  the  wall  at  the  foot  of  which  stood  the 
panel  which  we  have  already  mentioned,  and  turned  it  round, 
still  leaving  it  supported  against  the  wall.  It  really  was  some- 
thing which  resembled  a  picture,  and  which  the  candle  illumi- 
nated, somewhat.  Marius  could  make  nothing  out  of  it,  as 
Jondrette  stood  between  the  picture  and  him;  he  only  saw  a 
coarse  daub,  and  a  sort  of  principal  personage  colored  with  the 
harsh  crudity  of  foreign  canvasses  and  screen  paintings. 

"What  is  that?"  asked  M.  Leblanc. 

Jondrette  exclaimed: — 

"A  painting  by  a  master,  a  picture  of  great  value,  my  bene- 
factor !  I  am  as  much  attached  to  it  as  I  am  to  my  two 
daughters ;  it  recalls  souvenirs  to  me !  But  I  have  told  you, 
and  I  will  not  take  it  back,  that  I  am  so  wretched  that  I  will 
part  with  it." 

Either  by  chance,  or  because  he  had  begun  to  feel  a  dawn- 
ing uneasiness,  M.  Leblanc's  glance  returned  to  the  bottom  of 
the  room  as  he  examined  the  picture. 

There  were  now  four  men,  three  seated  on  the  bed,  one 


246  MARIU8 

standing  near  the  door-post,  all  four  with  bare  arms  and 
motionless,  with  faces  smeared  with  black.  One  of  those  on 
the  bed  was  leaning  against  the  wall,  with  closed  eyes,  and 
it  might  have  been  supposed  that  he  was  asleep.  He  was  old ; 
his  white  hair  contrasting  with  his  blackened  face  produced 
a  horrible  effect.  The  other  two  seemed  to  be  young;  one 
wore  a  beard,  the  other  wore  his  hair  long.  None  of  them 
had  on  shoes;  those  who  did  not  wear  socks  were  barefooted. 

Jondrette  noticed  that  M.  Leblanc's  eye  was  fixed  on  these 
men. 

"They  are  friends.  They  are  neighbors,"  said  he.  "Their 
faces  are  black  because  they  work  in  charcoal.  They  are 
chimney-builders.  Don't  trouble  yourself  about  them,  my 
benefactor,  but  buy  my  picture.  Have  pity  on  my  misery. 
I  will  not  ask  you  much  for  it.  How  much  do  you  think  it 
is  worth?" 

"Well,"  said  M.  Leblanc,  looking  Jondrette  full  in  the  eye, 
and  with  the  manner  of  a  man  who  is  on  his  guard,  "it  is 
some  signboard  for  a  tavern,  and  is  worth  about  three  francs." 

Jondrette  replied  sweetly : — 

"Have  you  your  pocket-book  with  you?  I  should  be  satis- 
fied with  a  thousand  crowns." 

M.  Leblanc  sprang  up,  placed  his  back  against  the  wall,  and 
cast  a  rapid  glance  around  the  room.  He  had  Jondrette  on  his 
left,  on  the  side  next  the  window,  and  the  Jondrette  woman 
and  the  four  men  on  his  right,  on  the  side  next  the  door.  The 
four  men  did  not  stir,  and  did  not  even  seem  to  be  looking 
on. 

Jondrette  had  again  begun  to  speak  in  a  plaintive  tone,  with 
so  vague  an  eye,  and  so  lamentable  an  intonation,  that  M. 
Leblanc  might  have  supposed  that  what  he  had  before  him 
was  a  man  who  had  simply  gone  mad  with  misery. 

"If  you  do  not  buy  my  picture,  my  dear  benefactor,"  said 
Joiidrt-tte,  "I  shall  be  left  without  resources ;  there  will  be 
nothing  left  for  me  but  to  throw  myself  into  the  river.  When 
I  think  that  I  wanted  to  have  my  two  girls  taught  the  middle- 
class  paper-box  trade,  the  making  of  boxes  for  New  Year's 


THE  WICKED  POOR  MAN  247 

gifts !  Well !  A  table  with  a  board  at  the  end  to  keep  the 
glasses  from  falling  off  is  required,  then  a  special  stove  is 
needed,  a  pot  with  three  compartments  for  the  different  de- 
grees of  strength  of  the  paste,  according  as  it  is  to  be  used 
for  wood,  paper,  or  stuff,  a  paring-knife  to  cut  the  cardboard, 
a  mould  to  adjust  it,  a  hammer  to  nail  the  steels,  pincers,  how 
the  devil  do  I  know  what  all?  And  all  that  in  order  to  earn 
four  sous  a  day  !  And  you  have  to  work  fourteen  hours  a  day  ! 
And  each  box  passes  through  the  workwoman's  hands  thirteen 
times !  And  you  can't  wet  the  paper !  And  you  mustn't  spot 
anything !  And  you  must  keep  the  paste  hot.  The  devil,  I 
tell  you  !  Four  sous  a  day  !  How  do  you  suppose  a  man  is  to 
live?" 

As  he  spoke,  Jondrette  did  not  look  at  M.  Leblanc,  who  was 
observing  him.  M.  Leblanc's  eye  was  fixed  on  Jondrette,  and 
Jondrette's  eye  was  fixed  on  the  door.  Marius'  eager  attention 
was  transferred  from  one  to  the  other.  M.  Leblanc  seemed  to 
be  asking  himself:  "Is  this  man  an  idiot?"  Jondrette  re- 
peated two  or  three  distinct  times,  with  all  manner  of  varying 
inflections  of  the  whining  and  supplicating  order:  "There  is 
nothing  left  for  me  but  to  throw  myself  into  the  river!  I 
went  down  three  steps  at  the  side  of  the  bridge  of  Austerlitz 
the  other  day  for  that  purpose." 

All  at  once  his  dull  eyes  lighted  up  with  a  hideous  flash  ;  the 
little  man  drew  himself  up  and  became  terrible,  took  a  step 
toward  M.  Leblanc  and  cried  in  a  voice  of  thunder :  "That 
has  nothing  to  do  with  the  question  !  Do  you  know  me  ?" 


CHAPTER    XX 

THE  TRAP 

THE  door  of  the  garret  had  just  opened  abruptly,  and 
allowed  a  view  of  throe  men  men  clad  in  blue  linen  blouses, 
and  masked  with  masks  of  black  paper.  The  first  was  thin, 
and  had  a  long,  iron-tipped  cudgel;  the  second,  who  was  a 


048  MARIU8 

sort  of  colossus,  carried,  by  the  middle  of  the  handle,  with  the 
blade  downward,  a  butcher's  pole-axe  for  slaughtering  cattle. 
The  third,  a  man  with  thick-set  shoulders,  not  so  slender  as 
the  first,  held  in  his  hand  an  enormous  key  stolen  from  the 
door  of  some  prison. 

It  appeared  that  the  arrival  of  these  men  was  what  Jond- 
rette  had  been  waiting  for.  A  rapid  dialogue  ensued  between 
him  and  the  man  with  the  cudgel,  the  thin  one. 

"Is  everything  ready?"  said  Jondrette. 

"Yes,"  replied  the  thin  man. 

"Where  is  Montparnasse  ?" 

"The  young  principal  actor  stopped  to  chat  with  your  girl." 

"Which?" 

"The  eldest." 

"Is  there  a  carriage  at  the  door  ?" 

"Yes." 

"Is  the  team  harnessed  ?" 

"Yes." 

"With  two  good  horses?" 

"Excellent." 

"Is  it  waiting  where  I  ordered?" 

"Yes." 

"Good,"  said  Jondrette. 

M.  Leblanc  was  very  pale.  He  was  scrutinizing  everything 
around  him  in  the  den,  like  a  man  who  understands  what  he 
has  fallen  into,  and  his  head,  directed  in  turn  toward  all  the 
heads  which  surrounded  him,  moved  on  his  neck  with  an 
astonished  and  attentive  slowness,  but  there  was  nothing  in 
his  air  which  resembled  fear.  He  had  improvised  an  intrench- 
mcnt  out  of  the  table ;  and  the  man,  who  but  an  instant  previ- 
ously, had  borne  merely  the  appearance  of  a  kindly  old  man, 
had  suddenly  become  a  sort  of  athlete,  and  placed  his  robust 
fist  on  the  back  of  his  chair,  with  a  formidable  and  surprising 
gesture. 

This  old  man,  who  was  so  firm  and  so  brave  in  the  presence 
of  such  a  danger,  seemed  to  possess  one  of  those  natures  which 
are  as  courageous  as  they  are  kind,  both  easily  and  simply. 


MY     NAME     IS     THENAROIER'" 


THE  WICKED  POOR  MAN  249 

The  father  of  a  woman  whom  we  love  is  never  a  stranger  to 
us.  Marius  felt  proud  of  that  unknown  man. 

Three  of  the  men,  of  whom  Jondrette  had  said :  "They  are 
chimney-builders,"  had  armed  themselves  from  the  pile  of  old 
iron,  one  with  a  heavy  pair  of  shears,  the  second  with  weigh- 
ing-tongs, the  third  with  a  hammer,  and  had  placed  them- 
selves across  the  entrance  without  uttering  a  syllable.  The 
old  man  had  remained  on  the  bed,  and  had  merely  opened 
his  eyes.  The  Jondrette  woman  had  seated  herself  beside 
him. 

Marius  decided  that  in  a  few  seconds  more  the  moment  for 
intervention  would  arrive,  and  he  raised  his  right  hand 
towards  the  ceiling,  in  the  direction  of  the  corridor,  in  readi- 
ness to  discharge  his  pistol. 

Jondrette  having  terminated  his  colloquy  with  the  man 
with  the  cudgel,  turned  once  more  to  M.  Leblanc,  and  repeated 
his  question,  accompanying  it  with  that  low,  repressed,  and 
terrible  laugh  which  was  peculiar  to  him : — 

"So  you  do  not  recognize  me  ?" 

M.  Leblanc  looked  him  full  in  the  face,  and  replied : — 

"No." 

Then  Jondratte  advanced  to  the  table.  He  leaned  across  the 
candle,  crossing  his  arms,  putting  his  angular  and  ferocious 
jaw  close  to  M.  Leblanc's  calm  face,  and  advancing  as  far  as 
possible  without  forcing  M.  Leblanc  to  retreat,  and,  in  this 
posture  of  a  wild  beast  who  is  about  to  bite,  he  exclaimed  :— 

"My  name  is  not  Fabantou,  my  name  is  not  Jondrette.  my 
name  is  Thenardier.  I  am  the  inn-keeper  of  Montfermeil ! 
Do  you  understand  ?  Thenardier !  Now  do  you  know 
me?" 

An  almost  imperceptible  flush  crossed  M.  Leblanc's  brow, 
and  he  replied  with  a  voice  which  neither  trembled  nor  rose 
above  its  ordinary  level,  with  his  accustomed  placidity : — 

"No  more  than  before." 

Marius  did  not  hear  this  reply.  Any  one  who  had  seen  him 
at  that  moment  through  the  darkness  would  have  perceived 
that  he  was  haggard,  stupid,  thunder-struck.  At  the  moment 


050  MAKIl'S 

when  Jondrette  said :  "My  name  is  Th6nardicr,"  Marius  had 
trembled  in  every  limb,  and  bad  leaned  against  the  wall,  as 
though  he  felt  the  cold  of  a  steel  blade  through  his  heart. 
Then  his  right  arm,  all  ready  to  discharge  the  signal  shot, 
dropped  slowly,  and  at  the  moment  when  Jondrette  repeated, 
"Thenardier.  do  you  understand?"  Marius's  faltering  fingers 
had  come  near  letting  the  pistol  fall.  Jondrette,  by  revealing 
his  identity,  had  not  moved  M.  Leblanc,  but  he  had  quite 
upset  Marius.  That  name  of  Thenardier,  with  which  M. 
Leblanc  did  not  seem  to  be  acquainted,  Marius  knew  well. 
Let  the  reader  recall  what  that  name  meant  to  him !  That 
name  he  had  worn  on  his  heart,  inscribed  in  his  father's 
testament !  He  bore  it  at  the  bottom  of  his  mind,  in  the 
depths  of  his  memory,  in  that  sacred  injunction :  <f\  certain 
Thenardier  saved  my  life.  If  my  son  encounters  him,  he  will 
do  him  all  the  good  that  lies  in  his  power."  That  name,  it 
will  be  remembered,  was  one  of  the  pieties  of  his  soul ;  he 
mingled  it  with  the  name  of  his  father  in  his  worship.  What ! 
This  man  was  that  Thenardier,  that  inn-keeper  of  Montfer- 
meil  whom  he  had  so  long  and  so  vainly  sought !  He  had 
found  him  at  last,  and  how?  His  father's  saviour  was  a 
ruffian !  That  man,  to  whose  service  Marius  was  burning  to 
devote  himself,  was  a  monster !  That  liberator  of  Colonel 
Pontmercy  was  on  the  point  of  committing  a  crime  whose 
scope  Marius  did  not,  as  yet,  clearly  comprehend,  but  which 
resembled  an  assassination  !  And  against  whom,  great  God ! 
what  a  fatality!  What  a  bitter  mockery  of  fate!  His  father 
had  commanded  him  from  the  depths  of  his  coffin  to  do  all 
the  good  in  his  power  to  this  Thenardier,  and  for  four  years 
Marius  had  cherished  no  other  thought  than  to  acquit  this 
debt  of  his  father's,  and  at  the  moment  when  he  was  on  the 
eve  of  having  a  brigand  seized  in  the  very  act  of  crime  by 
justice,  destiny  cried  to  him:  "This  is  Thenardier!"  lie 
could  at  last  repay  this  man  for  his  father's  life,  saved  amid 
a  hail-storm  of  grape-shot  on  the  heroic  field  of  Waterloo,  and 
repay  it  with  the  scaffold!  He  had  sworn  to  himself  that  if 
ever  he  found  that  Thenardier,  he  would  address  him  only  by 


THE  WICKED  POOR  MAN  251 

throwing  himself  at  his  feet ;  and  now  he  actually  had  found 
him,  but  it  was  only  to  deliver  him  over  to  the  executioner ! 
His  father  said  to  him :  "Succor  Thenardier !"  And  he  re- 
plied to  that  adored  and  sainted  voice  by  crushing  Thenardier  ! 
He  was  about  to  offer  to  his  father  in  his  grave  the  spectacle 
of  that  man  who  had  torn  him  from  death  at  the  peril  of  his 
own  life,  executed  on  the  Place  Saint-Jacques  through  the 
means  of  his  son,  of  that  Marius  to  whom  he  had  entrusted 
that  man  by  his  will !  And  what  a  mockery  to  have  so  long 
worn  on  his  breast  his  father's  last  commands,  written  in 
his  own  hand,  only  to  act  in  so  horribly  contrary  a  sense ! 
But,  on  the  other  hand,  now  look  on  that  trap  and  not  prevent 
it !  Condemn  the  victim  and  to  spare  the  assassin !  Could 
one  be  held  to  any  gratitude  towards  so  miserable  a  wretch? 
All  the  ideas  which  Marius  had  cherished  for  the  last  four 
years  were  pierced  through  and  through,  as  it  were,  by  this 
unforeseen  blow. 

He  shuddered.  Everything  depended  on  him.  Unknown 
to  themselves,  he  held  in  his  hand  all  those  beings  who  were 
moving  about  there  before  his  eyes.  If  he  fired  his  pistol,  M. 
Leblanc  was  saved,  and  Thenardier  lost ;  if  he  did  not  fire,  M. 
Leblanc  would  be  sacrificed,  and,  who  knows?  Thenardier 
would  escape.  Should  he  dash  down  the  one  or  allow  the 
other  to  fall?  Remorse  awaited  him  in  either  case. 

What  was  he  to  do?  What  should  he  choose?  Be  false  to 
the  most  imperious  souvenirs,  to  all  those  solemn  vows  to  him- 
self, to  the  most  sacred  duty,  to  the  most  venerated  text ! 
Should  he  ignore  his  father's  testament,  or  allow  the  perpe- 
tration of  a  crime !  On  the  one  hand,  it  seemed  to  him  that 
he  heard  "his  Ursule"  supplicating  for  her  father,  and  on  the 
other,  the  colonel  commending  Thenardier  to  his  care.  He 
felt  that  he  was  going  mad.  His  knees  gave  way  beneath  him. 
And  he  had  not  even  the  time  for  deliberation.  ?o  great  was 
the  fury  with  which  the  scene  before  his  eye?  was  hastening 
to  its  catastrophe.  It  was  like  a  whirlwind  of  which  he  had 
thought  himself  the  master,  and  which  was  now  sweeping  him 
away.  He  was  on  the  verge  of  swooning. 


252  MARIUS 

In  the  meantime,  Thenardier,  whom  we  shall  henceforth  call 
by  no  other  name,  was  pacing  up  and  down  in  front  of  the 
table  in  a  sort  of  frenzy  and  wild  triumph. 

He  seized  the  candle  in  his  fist,  and  set  it  on  the  chimney- 
piece  with  so  violent  a  bang  that  the  wick  came  near  being 
extinguished,  and  the  tallow  bespattered  the  wall. 

Then  he  turned  to  M.  Leblanc  with  a  horrible  look,  and  spit 
out  these  words : — 

"Done  for  !    Smoked  brown!    Cooked!    Spitchcocked  !" 

And  again  he  began  to  march  back  and  forth,  in  full  erup- 
tion. 

"Ah  !"  he  cried,  "so  I've  found  you  again  at  last,  Mister 
philanthropist !  Mister  threadbare  millionnaire !  Mister  giver 
of  dolls  !  you  old  ninny !  Ah  !  so  you  don't  recognize  me !  No, 
it  wasn't  you  who  came  to  Montfermeil,  to  my  inn,  eight  years 
ago,  on  Christmas  eve,  1823 !  It  wasn't  you  who  carried  off 
that  Fantine's  child  from  me  !  The  Lark  !  It  wasn't  you  who 
had  a  yellow  great-coat !  No  !  Nor  a  package  of  duds  in  your 
hand,  as  you  had  this  morning  here !  Say,  wife,  it  seems  to  be 
his  mania  to  carry  packets  of  woollen  stockings  into  houses ! 
Old  charity  monger,  get  out  with  you !  Are  you  a  hosier, 
Mister  millionnaire?  You  give  away  your  stock  in  trade  to 
the  poor,  holy  man  !  What  bosh  !  merry  Andrew  !  Ah  !  and 
you  don't  recognize  me  ?  Well,  I  recognize  you,  that  I  do  !  I 
recognized  you  the  very  moment  you  poked  your  snout  in  here. 
Ah !  you'll  find  out  presently,  that  it  isn't  all  roses  to  thrust 
yourself  in  that  fashion  into  people's  houses,  under  the  pretext 
that  they  are  taverns,  in  wretched  clothes,  with  the  air  of  a 
poor  man,  to  whom  one  would  give  a  sou,  to  deceive  persons, 
to  play  the  generous,  to  take  away  their  means  of  livelihood, 
and  to  make  threats  in  the  woods,  and  you  can't  call  things 
quits  because  afterwards,  when  people  are  ruined,  you  bring 
a  coat  that  is  too  large,  and  two  miserable  hospital  blankets, 
you  old  blackguard,  you  child-stealer !" 

He  paused,  and  seemed  to  be  talking  to  himself  for  a  mo- 
ment. One  would  have  said  that  his  wrath  had  fallen  into 
some  hole,  like  the  Rhone;  then,  as  though  he  were  concluding 


THE  WICKED  POOR  MAN  253 

aloud  the  things  which  he  had  been  saying  to  himself  in  a 
whisper,  he  smote  the  table  with  his  fist,  and  shouted : — 

"And  with  his  goody-goody  air  !" 

And,  apostrophizing  M.  Leblanc: — 

"Parbleu  !  You  made  game  of  me  in  the  past !  You  are  the 
cause  of  all  my  misfortunes !  For  fifteen  hundred  francs  you 
got  a  girl  whom  I  had,  and  who  certainly  belonged  to  rich 
people,  and  who  had  already  brought  in  a  great  deal  of  money, 
and  from  whom  I  might  have  extracted  enough  to  live  on  all 
my  life  !  A  girl  who  would  have  made  up  to  me  for  everything 
that  I  lost  in  that  vile  cook-shop,  where  there  was  nothing  but 
one  continual  row,  and  where,  like  a  fool,  I  ate  up  my  last 
farthing !  Oh !  I  wish  all  the  wine  folks  drank  in  my  house 
had  been  poison  to  those  who  drank  it!  Well,  never  mind! 
Say,  now !  You  must  have  thought  me  ridiculous  when  you 
went  off  with  the  Lark !  You  had  your  cudgel  in  the  forest. 
You  were  the  stronger.  Kevenge.  I'm  the  one  to  hold  the 
trumps  to-day  !  You're  in  a  sorry  case,  my  good  fellow !  Oh, 
but  I  can  laugh!  Really,  I  laugh!  Didn't  he  fall  into  the 
trap !  I  told  him  that  I  was  an  actor,  that  my  name  was 
Fabantou,  that  I  had  played  comedy  with  Mamselle  Mars,  with 
Mamselle  Muche,  that  my  landlord  insisted  on  being  paid  to- 
morrow, the  4th  of  February,  and  he  didn't  even  notice  that 
the  8th  of  January,  and  not  the  4th  of  February  is  the  time 
when  the  quarter  runs  out !  Absurd  idiot !  And  the  four  mis- 
erable Philippes  which  he  has  brought  me!  Scoundrel!  He 
hadn't  the  heart  even  to  go  as  high  as  a  hundred  francs  !  And 
how  he  swallowed  my  platitudes  !  That  did  amuse  me.  I  said 
to  myself:  'Blockbead!  Come,  I've  got  you!  I  lick  your  paws 
this  morning,  but  I'll  gnaw  your  heart  this  evening!' ' 

Thenardier  paused.  He  was  out  of  breath.  His  little,  nar- 
row chest  panted  like  a  forge  bellows.  His  eyes  were  full  of 
the  ignoble  happiness  of  a  feeble,  cruel,  and  cowardly  creature, 
which  finds  that  it  can,  at  last,  harass  what  it  has  feared,  ::!ul 
insult  what  it  has  flattered,  the  joy  of  a  dwarf  who  should  bo 
able  to  set  his  heel  on  the  head  of  Goliath,  the  joy  of  a  jackal 
which  is  beginning  to  rend  a  sick  bull,  so  nearly  dead  that  he 


054 

can  no  longer  defend  himself,  but  sufficiently  alive  to  suffer 
still. 

M.  Leblanc  did  not  interrupt  him,  but  said  to  him  when  he 
paused : — 

"I  do  not  know  what  you  mean  to  say.  You  are  mistaken 
in  me.  I  am  a  very  poor  man,  and  anything  but  a  millionnaire. 
I  do  not  know  you.  You  are  mistaking  me  for  some  other 
person." 

"Ah!"  roared  Thenardier  hoarsely,  "a  pretty  lie!  You 
stick  to  that  pleasantry,  do  you !  You're  floundering,  my  old 
buck !  Ah !  You  don't  remember !  You  don't  see  who  I 
am?" 

"Excuse  me,  sir,"  said  M.  Leblanc  with  a  politeness  of 
accent,  which  at  that  moment  seemed  peculiarly  strange  and 
powerful,  "I  see  that  you  are  a  villain !" 

\Vho  has  not  remarked  the  fact  that  odious  creatures  possess 
a  susceptibility  of  their  own,  that  monsters  are  ticklish !  At 
this  word  "villain,"  the  female  Thenardier  sprang  from  the 
bed,  Thenardier  grasped  his  chair  as  though  he  were  about  to 
crush  it  in  his  hands.  "Don't  you  stir !"  he  shouted  to  his 
wife;  and,  turning  to  M.  Leblanc: — 

"Villain !  Yes,  I  know  that  you  call  us  that,  you  rich  gen- 
tlemen !  Stop  !  it's  true  that  I  became  bankrupt,  that  I  am  in 
hiding,  that  I  have  no  bread,  that  I  have  not  a  single  sou,  that 
I  am  a  villain!  It's  three  days  since  I  have  had  anything  to 
eat,  so  I'm  a  villain  !  Ah  !  you  folks  warm  your  feet,  you  have 
Sakoski  boots,  you  have  wadded  great-coats,  like  archbishops, 
you  lodge  on  the  first  floor  in  houses  that  have  porters,  you  eat 
truffles,  you  eat  asparagus  at  forty  francs  the  bunch  in  the 
month  of  January,  and  green  peas,  you  gorge  yourselves,  and 
when  you  want  to  know  whether  it  is  cold,  you  look  in  the 
papers  to  see  what  the  engineer  Chevalier's  thermometer  says 
about  it.  We,  it  is  we  who  are  thermometers.  We  dont  need 
to  go  out  and  look  on  the  quay  at  the  corner  of  the  Tour  do 
1'Horologe,  to  find  out  the  number  of  degrees  of  cold;  we  feel 
our  blood  congealing  in  our  veins,  and  the  ka  forming  round 
our  hearts,  and  we  say:  'There  is  no  God!'  And  you  come 


THE  WICKED  POOR  MAN  255 

to  our  caverns,  yes,  our  caverns,  for  the  purpose  of  calling  us 
villains!  But  we'll  devour  you!  But  we'll  devour  you,  poor 
little  things!  Just  see  here.  Mister  millionnaire:  1  have  been 
a  solid  man,  I  have  held  a  license,  I  have  heen  an  elector,  I  am 
a  bourgeois,  that  I  am !  And  it's  quite  possible  that  you  are 
not !" 

Here  Thenardier  took  a  step  towards  the  men  who  stood  near 
the  door,  and  added  with  a  shudder : — 

"When  I  think  that  he  has  dared  to  come  here  and  talk  to 
me  like  a  cobbler !" 

Then  addressing  M.  Leblanc  with  a  fresh  outburst  of 
frenzy : — 

"And  listen  to  this  also,  Mister  philanthropist !  I'm  not  a 
suspicious  character,  not  a  bit  of  it !  I'm  not  a  man  whose 
name  nobody  knows,  and  who  comes  and  abducts  children  from 
houses  !  I'm  an  old  French  soldier,  I  ought  to  have  been  deco- 
rated !  I  was  at  Waterloo,  so  I  was !  And  in  the  battle  I  saved 
a  general  called  the  Comte  of  I  don't  know  what.  He  told  me 
his  name,  but  his  beastly  voice  was  so  weak  that  I  didn't  hear. 
All  I  caught  was  Merci  [thanks].  I'd  rather  have  had  his 
name  than  his  thanks.  That  would  have  helped  me  to  find  him 
again.  The  picture  that  you  see  here,  and  which  was  painted 
by  David  at  Bruqueselles, — do  you  know  what  it  represents? 
It  represents  me.  David  wished  to  immortalize  that  feat  of 
prowess.  I  have  that  general  on  my  back,  and  I  am  carrying 
him  through  the  grape-shot.  There's  the  history  of  it !  That 
general  never  did  a  single  thing  for  me;  he  was  no  better  than 
the  rest!  But  none  the  less,  I  saved  his  life  at  the  risk  of  my 
own,  and  I  have  the  certificate  of  the  fact  in  my  pocket !  I  am 
a  soldier  of  Waterloo,  by  all  the  furies !  And  now  that  I  have 
had  the  goodness  to  tell  you  all  this,  let's  have  an  end  of  it.  I 
want  money,  I  want  a  deal  of  money,  I  must  have  an  enormous 
lot  of  money,  or  I'll  exterminate  you,  by  the  thunder  of  the 
good  God !" 

Marius  had  regained  some  measure  of  control  over  his  an- 
guish, and  was  listening.  The  last  possibility  of  doubt  had 
just  vanished.  It  certainly  was  the  Thenardier  of  the  will. 


256  MARIU8 

Marius  shuddered  at  that  reproach  of  ingratitude  directed 
against  his  father,  and  which  he  was  on  the  point  of  so  fatally 
justifying.  His  perplexity  was  redoubled. 

Moreover,  there  was  in  all  these  words  of  Thenardier,  in  his 
accent,  in  his  gesture,  in  his  glance  which  darted  flames  at 
every  word,  there  was,  in  this  explosion  of  an  evil  nature  dis- 
closing everything,  in  that  mixture  of  braggadocio  and  abject- 
ness,  of  pride  and  pettiness,  of  rage  and  folly,  in  that  chaos  of 
real  griefs  and  false  sentiments,  in  that  immodesty  of  a  mali- 
cious man  tasting  the  voluptuous  delights  of  violence,  in  that 
shameless  nudity  of  a  repulsive  soul,  in  that  conflagration  of 
all  sufferings  combined  with  all  hatreds,  something  which  was 
as  hideous  as  evil,  and  as  heart-rending  as  the  truth. 

The  picture  of  the  master,  the  painting  by  David  which  he 
had  proposed  that  M.  Leblanc  should  purchase,  was  nothing 
else,  as  the  reader  has  divined,  than  the  sign  of  his  tavern 
painted,  as  it  will  be  remembered,  by  himself,  the  only  relic 
which  he  had  preserved  from  his  shipwreck  at  Montfermeil. 

As  he  had  ceased  to  intercept  Marius'  visual  ray,  Marius 
could  examine  this  thing,  and  in  the  daub,  he  actually  did 
recognize  a  battle,  a  background  of  smoke,  and  a  man  carrying 
another  man.  It  was  the  group  composed  of  Pontmercy  and 
Thenardier ;  the  sergeant  the  rescuer,  the  colonel  rescued. 
Marius  was  like  a  drunken  man;  this  picture  restored  his 
father  to  life  in  some  sort;  it  was  no  longer  the  signboard  of 
the  wine-shop  at  Montfermeil,  it  was  a  resurrection ;  a  tomb 
had  yawned,  a  phantom  had  risen  there.  Marius  heard  his 
heart  beating  in  his  temples,  he  had  the  cannon  of  Waterloo  in 
his  ears,  his  bleeding  father,  vaguely  depicted  on  that  sinister 
panel  terrified  him,  and  it  seemed  to  him  that  the  misshapen 
spectre  was  gazing  intently  at  him. 

When  Thenardier  had  recovered  his  breath,  he  turned  his 
bloodshot  eyes  on  M.  Leblanc,  and  said  to  him  in  a  low,  curt 
voice : — 

"What  have  you  to  say  before  we  put  the  handcuffs  on 
you  ?" 

M.  Leblanc  held  his  peace. 


THE  WICKED  POOR  MAN  257 

In  the  midst  of  this  silence,  a  cracked  voice  launched  this 
lugubrious  sarcasm  from  the  corridor : — 

"If  there's  any  wood  to  be  split,  I'm  there !" 

It  was  the  man  with  the  axe,  who  was  growing  merry. 

At  the  same  moment,  an  enormous,  bristling,  and  clayey 
face  made  its  appearance  at  the  door,  with  a  hideous  laugh 
which  exhibited  not  teeth,  but  fangs. 

It  was  the  face  of  the  man  with  the  butcher's  axe. 

"Why  have  you  taken  off  your  mask  ?"  cried  Thenardier  in 
a  rage. 

"For  fun,"  retorted  the  man. 

For  the  last  few  minutes  M.  Leblanc  had  appeared  to  be 
watching  and  following  all  the  movements  of  Thenardier,  who, 
blinded  and  dazzled  by  his  own  rage,  was  stalking  to  and  fro 
in  the  den  with  full  confidence  that  the  door  was  guarded,  and 
of  holding  an  unarmed  man  fast,  he  being  armed  himself,  of 
being  nine  against  one,  supposing  that  the  female  Thenardier 
counted  for  but  one  man. 

During  his  address  to  the  man  with  the  pole-axe,  he  had 
turned  his  back  to  M.  Leblanc. 

M.  Leblanc  seized  this  moment,  overturned  the  chair  with 
his  foot  and  the  table  with  his  fist,  and  with  one  bound,  with 
prodigious  agility,  before  Thenardier  had  time  to  turn  round, 
he  had  reached  the  window.  To  open  it,  to  scale  the  frame, 
to  bestride  it,  was  the  work  of  a  second  only.  He  was  half 
out  when  six  robust  fists  seized  him  and  dragged  him  back 
energetically  into  the  hovel.  These  were  the  three  "chim- 
ney-builders," who  had  flung  themselves  upon  him.  At  the 
same  time  the  Thenardier  woman  had  wound  her  hands  in  his 
hair. 

At  the  trampling  which  ensued,  the  other  ruffians  rushed  up 
from  the  corridor.  The  old  man  on  the  bed,  who  seemed  under 
the  influence  of  wine,  descended  from  the  pallet  and  came  reel- 
ing up,  with  a  stone-breaker's  hammer  in  his  band. 

One  of  the  "chimney-builders,"  whose  smirched  face  was 
lighted  up  by  the  candle,  and  in  whom  Mnrius  recognized,  in 
spitt  of  his  daubing,  Panchaud,  alias  Printanier,  alias  Bigre- 


058  MAKWB 

naille,  lifted  above  M.  Leblanc's  head  a  sort  of  bludgeon  made 
of  two  balls  of  lead,  at  the  two  ends  of  a  bar  of  iron. 

Marius  could  not  resist  this  sight.  "My  father,"  he  thought, 
"forgive  me !" 

And  his  finger  sought  the  trigger  of  his  pistol. 

The  shot  was  on  the  point  of  being  discharged  when  Thenar- 
dier's  voice  shoutdd  : — 

""Don't  harm  him !" 

This  desperate  attempt  of  the  victim,  far  from  exasperating 
Thenardier,  had  calmed  him.  There  existed  in  him  two  men, 
the  ferocious  man  and  the  adroit  man.  Up  to  that  moment,  in 
the  excess  of  his  triumph  in  the  presence  of  the  prey  which  had 
been  brought  down,  and  which  did  not  stir,  the  ferocious  man 
had  prevailed;  when  the  victim  struggled  and  tried  to  resist, 
the  adroit  man  reappeared  and  took  the  upper  hand. 

"Don't  hurt  him !"  he  repeated,  and  without  suspecting  it, 
his  first  success  was  to  arrest  the  pistol  in  the  act  of  being  dis- 
charged, and  to  paralyze  Marius,  in  whose  opinion  the  urgency 
of  the  case  disappeared,  and  who,  in  the  face  of  this  new  phase, 
saw  no  inconvenience  in  waiting  a  while  longer. 

Who  knows  whether  some  chance  would  not  arise  which 
would  deliver  him  from  the  horrible  alternative  of  allowing 
Ursule's  father  to  perish,  or  of  destroying  the  colonel's  sa- 
viour? 

A  herculean  struggle  had  begun.  With  one  blow  full  in  the 
chest,  M.  Leblanc  had  sent  the  old  man  tumbling,  rolling  in 
the  middle  of  the  room,  then  with  two  backward  sweeps  of  his 
hand  he  had  overthrown  two  more  assailants,  and  he  held  one 
under  each  of  his  knees;  the  wretches  were  rattling  in  the 
throat  beneath  this  pressure  as  under  a  granite  millstone;  but 
the  other  four  had  seized  the  formidable  old  man  by  both  arms 
and  the  back  of  his  neck,  and  were  holding  him  doubled  up 
over  the  two  "chimney-builders"  on  the  floor. 

Thus,  the  master  of  some  and  mastered  by  the  rest,  crushing 
those  beneath  him  and  stifling  under  those  on  top  of  him,  en- 
deavoring in  vain  to  shake  off  all  the  efforts  which  were  heaped 
upon  him,  M.  Leblanc  disappeared  under  the  horrible  group  of 


THE  WICKED  POOR  MAN  259 

ruffians  like  the  wild  boar  beneath  a  howling  pile  of  dogs  and 
hounds. 

They  succeeded  in  overthrowing  him  upon  the  bed  nearest 
the  window,  and  there  they  held  him  in  awe.  The  Thenar- 
dier  woman  had  not  released  her  clutch  on  his  hair. 

"Don't  you  mix  yourself  up  in  this  affair,"  said  Thenardier. 
"You'll  tear  your  shawl." 

The  Thenardier  obeyed,  as  the  female  wolf  obeys  the  male 
wolf,  with  a  growl. 

"Now,"  said  Thenardier,  "search  him,  you  other  fellows !" 

M.  Leblanc  seemed  to  have  renounced  the  idea  of  resistance. 

They  searched  him. 

He  had  nothing  on  his  person  except  a  leather  purse  con- 
taining six  francs,  and  his  handkerchief. 

Thenardier  put  the  handkerchief  into  his  own  pocket. 

"What !    No  pocket-book  ?"  he  demanded. 

"No,  nor  watch,"  replied  one  of  the  "chimney-builders." 

"Never  mind,"  murmured  the  masked  man  who  carried  the 
big  key,  in  the  voice  of  a  ventriloquist,  "he's  a  tough  old 
fellow." 

Thenardier  went  to  the  corner  near  the  door,  picked  up  a 
bundle  of  ropes  and  threw  them  at  the  men. 

"Tie  him  to  the  leg  of  the  bed,"  said  he. 

And,  catching  sight  of  the  old  man  who  had  been  stretched 
across  the  room  by  the  blow  from  M.  Leblanc's  fist,  and  who 
made  no  movement,  he  added : — 

"Is  Boulatruelle  dead  ?" 

"No,"  replied  Bigrenaille,  "he's  drunk." 

"Sweep  him  into  a  corner,"  said  Thenardier. 

Two  of  the  "chimney-builders"  pushed  the  drunken  man 
into  the  corner  near  the  heap  of  old  iron  with  their  feet. 

"Babet,"  said  Thenardier  in  a  low  tone  to  the  man  with  the 
cudgel,  "why  did  you  bring  so  many ;  they  were  not  needed." 

"What  can  you  do?"  replied  the  man  with  the  cudgel,  "they 
all  wanted  to  be  in  it.  This  is  a  bad  season.  There's  no 
business  going  on." 

The  pallet  on  which  M.  Leblanc  had  been  thrown  was  a  sort 


900  MARIU8 

of  hospital  bed,  elevated  on  four  coarse  wooden  legs,  roughly 
hewn. 

M.  Leblanc  let  them  take  their  own  course. 

The  ruffians  bound  him  securely,  in  an  upright  attitude, 
with  his  feet  on  the  ground  at  the  head  of  the  bed,  the  end 
which  was  most  remote  from  the  window,  and  nearest  to  the 
fireplace. 

When  the  last  knot  had  been  tied,  Thenardier  took  a  chair 
and  seated  himself  almost  facing  M.  Leblanc. 

Thenardier  no  longer  looked  like  himself ;  in  the  course  of 
a  few  moments  his  face  had  passed  from  unbridled  violence 
to  tranquil  and  cunning  sweetness. 

Marius  found  it  difficult  to  recognize  in  that  polished  smile 
of  a  man  in  official  life  the  almost  bestial  mouth  which  had 
been  foaming  but  a  moment  before;  he  gazed  with  amaze- 
ment on  that  fantastic  and  alarming  metamorphosis,  and  he 
felt  as  a  man  might  feel  who  should  behold  a  tiger  converted 
into  a  lawyer. 

"Monsieur — "  said  Thenardier. 

And  dismissing  with  a  gesture  the  ruffians  who  still  kept 
their  hands  on  M.  Leblanc: — 

"Stand  off  a  little,  and  let  me  have  a  talk  with  the  gentle- 
man." 

All  retired  towards  the  door. 

He  went  on : — 

"Monsieur,  you  did  wrong  to  try  to  jump  out  of  the 
window.  You  might  have  broken  your  leg.  Now,  if  you  will 
permit  me,  we  will  converse  quietly.  In  the  first  place,  I  must 
communicate  to  you  an  observation  which  I  have  made,  which 
is,  that  you  have  not  uttered  the  faintest  cry." 

Thenardier  was  right,  this  detail  was  correct,  although  it 
had  escaped  Marius  in  his  agitation.  M.  Leblanc  had  barely 
pronounced  a  few  words,  without  raising  his  voice,  and  even 
during  his  struggle  with  the  six  ruffians  near  the  window 
he  had  preserved  the  most  profound  and  singular  silence. 

Thenardier  continued : — 

"Mon  Dieu !     You  might  have  shouted  'stop  thief  a  bit, 


THE  WICKED  POOH  A/AA  201 

and  I  should  not  have  thought  it  improper.  'Murder  !'  That, 
too,  is  said  occasionally,  and,  so  far  as  I  am  concerned,  I 
should  not  have  taken  it  in  bad  part.  It  is  very  natural  that 
you  should  make  a  little  row  when  you  find  yourself  with 
persons  who  don't  inspire  you  with  sufficient  confidence.  You 
might  have  done  that,  and  no  one  would  have  troubled  you  on 
that  account.  You  would  not  even  have  been  gagged.  And 
I  will  tell  you  why.  This  room  is  very  private.  That's  its 
only  recommendation,  but  it  has  that  in  its  favor.  You  might 
fire  off  a  mortar  and  it  would  produce  about  as  much  noise 
at  the  nearest  police  station  as  the  snores  of  a  drunken  man. 
Here  a  cannon  would  make  a  bourn,  and  the  thunder  would 
make  a  pouf.  It's  a  handy  lodging.  But,  in  short,  you  did 
not  shout,  and  it  is  better  so.  I  present  you  my  compliments, 
and  I  will  tell  you  the  conclusion  that  I  draw  from  that  fact : 
My  dear  sir,  when  a  man  shouts,  who  comes?  The  police. 
And  after  the  police?  Justice.  Well!  You  have  not  made 
an  outcry;  that  is  because  you  don't  care  to  have  the  police 
and  the  courts  come  in  any  more  than  we  do.  It  is  because, — 
I  have  long  suspected  it, — you  have  some  interest  in  hiding 
something.  On  our  side  we  have  the  same  interest.  So  we 
can  come  to  an  understanding." 

As  he  spoke  thus,  it  seemed  as  though  Thenardier,  who  kept 
his  eyes  fixed  on  M.  Leblanc,  were  trying  to  plunge  the  sharp 
points  which  darted  from  the  pupils  into  the  very  conscience 
of  his  prisoner.  Moreover,  his  language,  which  was  stamped 
with  a  sort  of  moderated,  subdued  insolence  and  crafty  inso- 
lence, was  reserved  and  almost  choice,  and  in  that  rascal,  who 
had  been  nothing  but  a  robber  a  short  time  previously,  one 
now  felt  "the  man  who  had  studied  for  the  priesthood." 

The  silence  preserved  by  the  prisoner,  that  precaution 
which  had  been  carried  to  the  point  of  forgetting  all  anxiety 
for  his  own  life,  that  resistance  opposed  to  the  first  impulse  of 
nature,  which  is  to  utter  a  cry,  all  this,  it  must  be  confessed, 
now  that  his  attention  had  been  called  to  it,  troubled  Marius, 
and  affected  him  with  painful  astonishment. 

Thenardier's   well-grounded   observation   still    further   ob- 


262  MARIU8 

soured  for  Marius  the  dense  mystery  which  enveloped  that 
grave  and  singular  person  on  whom  Courfeyrac  had  bestowed 
the  sobriquet  of  Monsieur  Leblanc. 

But  whoever  he  was,  bound  with  ropes,  surrounded  with 
executioners,  half  plunged,  so  to  speak,  in  a  grave  which  was 
closing  in  upon  him  to  the  extent  of  a  degree  with  every 
moment  that  passed,  in  the  presence  of  Thenardier's  wrath, 
as  in  the  presence  of  his  sweetness,  this  man  remained  impas- 
sive; and  Marius  could  not  refrain  from  admiring  at  such  a 
moment  the  superbly  melancholy  visage. 

Here,  evidently,  was  a  soul  which  was  inaccessible  to  terror, 
and  which  did  not  know  the  meaning  of  despair.  Here  was  one 
of  those  men  who  command  amazement  in  desperate  circum- 
stances. Extreme  as  was  the  crisis,  inevitable  as  was  the 
catastrophe,  there  was  nothing  here  of  the  agony  of  the  drown- 
ing man,  who  opens  his  horror-filled  eyes  under  the  water. 

Thenardier  rose  in  an  unpretending  manner,  went  to  the 
fireplace,  shoved  aside  the  screen,  which  he  leaned  against  the 
neighboring  pallet,  and  thus  unmasked  the  brazier  full  of 
glowing  coals,  in  which  the  prisoner  could  plainly  see  the 
chisel  white-hot  and  spotted  here  and  there  with  tiny  scarlet 
stars. 

Then  Thenardier  returned  to  his  seat  beside  M.  Leblanc. 

"I  continue,"  said  he.  "We  can  come  to  an  understanding. 
Let  us  arrange  this  matter  in  an  amicable  way.  I  was  wrong 
to  lose  my  temper  just  now,  I  don't  know  what  I  was  thinking 
of,  I  went  a  great  deal  too  far,  I  said  extravagant  tilings. 
For  example,  because  you  are  a  millionnaire.  I  told  you  that  I 
exacted  money,  a  lot  of  money,  a  deal  of  money.  That  would 
not  be  reasonable.  Mon  Dieu,  in  spite  of  your  riches,  you 
have  expenses  of  your  own — who  has  not?  I  don't  want  to 
ruin  you,  I  am  not  a  greedy  fellow,  after  all.  I  am  not  one 
of  those  people  who,  because  they  have  the  advantage  of  the 
position,  profit  by  the  fact  to  make  themselves  ridiculous. 
Why-  I'm  taking  things  into  consideration  and  making  a 
sacrifice  on  my  side.  I  only  want  two  hundred  thousand 
franca." 


THE  WICKED  POOR  MAN  263 

M.  Leblanc  uttered  not  a  word. 

Thenardier  went  on  : — 

"You  see  that  I  put  not  a  little  water  in  my  wine ;  I'm  very 
moderate.  I  don't  know  the  state  of  your  fortune,  but  I  do 
know  that  you  don't  stick  at  money,  and  a  benevolent  man 
like  yourself  can  certainly  give  two  hundred  thousand  francs 
to  the  father  of  a  family  who  is  out  of  luck.  Certainly,  you 
are  reasonable,  too;  you  haven't  imagined  that  I  should  take 
all  the  trouble  I  have  to-day  and  organized  this  affair  this 
evening,  which  has  been  labor  well  bestowed,  in  the  opinion 
of  these  gentlemen,  merely  to  wind  up  by  asking  you  for 
enough  to  go  and  drink  red  wine  at  fifteen  sous  and  eat  veal 
at  Desnoyer's.  Two  hundred  thousand  francs — it's  surely 
worth  all  that.  This  trifle  once  out  of  your  pocket,  I  guarantee 
you  that  that's  the  end  of  the  matter,  and  that  you  have  no 
further  demands  to  fear.  You  will  say  to  me :  'But  I  haven't 
two  hundred  thousand  francs  about  me.'  Oh !  I'm  not  extor- 
tionate. I  don't  demand  that.  I  only  ask  one  thing  of  you. 
Have  the  goodness  to  write  what  I  am  about  to  dictate  to 
you." 

Here  Thenardier  paused;  then  he  added,  emphasizing  his 
words,  and  casting  a  smile  in  the  direction  of  the  brazier: — 

"I  warn  you  that  I  shall  not  admit  that  you  don't  know  how 
to  write." 

A  grand  inquisitor  might  have  envied  that  smile. 

Thenardier  pushed  the  table  close  to  M.  Leblanc.  and  took 
an  inkstand,  a  pen,  and  a  sheet  of  paper  from  the  drawer 
which  he  left  half  open,  and  in  which  gleamed  the  long  blade 
of  the  knife. 

He  placed  the  sheet  of  paper  before  M.  Leblanc. 

"Write,"  said  he. 

The  prisoner  spoke  at  last. 

"How  do  you  expect  me  to  write?    I  am  bound." 

"That's  true,  excuse  me!"  ejaculated  Thenardier,  "you 
are  quite  right." 

And  turning  to  Bigrenaille : — 

"LTntie  the  gentleman's  right  arm." 


264  MARIU8 

Panchaud,  alias  Printanier,  alias  Bigrenaille,  executed  The- 
nardier's  order. 

When  the  prisoner's  right  arm  was  free,  Thenardier  dipped 
the  pen  in  the  ink  and  presented  it  to  him. 

"Understand  thoroughly,  sir,  that  you  are  in  our  power,  at 
our  discretion,  that  no  human  power  can  get  you  out  of  this, 
and  that  we  shall  be  really  grieved  if  we  are  forced  to  proceed 
to  disagreeable  extremities.  I  know  neither  your  name,  nor 
your  address,  but  I  warn  you,  that  you  will  remain  bound  until 
the  person  charged  with  carrying  the  letter  which  you  are 
about  to  write  shall  have  returned.  Now,  be  so  good  as  to 
write." 

"What?"  demanded  the  prisoner. 

"I  will  dictate." 

M.  Leblanc  took  the  pen. 

Thenardier  began  to  dictate: — 

"My  daughter— 

The  prisoner  shuddered,  and  raised  his  eyes  to  Thenardier. 

"Put  down  'My  dear  daughter'—  "  said  Thenardier. 

M.  Leblanc  obeyed. 

Thenardier  continued: — 

"Come  instantly—" 

He  paused : — 

"You  address  her  as  iliou,  do  you  not?" 

"Who?"  asked  M.  Leblanc. 

"Parbleu !"  cried  Thenardier,  "the  little  one,  the  Lark." 

M.  Leblanc  replied  without  the  slightest  apparent  emo- 
tion : — 

"I  do  not  know  what  you  mean." 

"Go  on,  nevertheless,"  ejaculated  Thenardier,  and  he  con- 
tinued to  dictate: — 

"Come  immediately,  T  am  in  absolute  need  of  thee.  The 
person  who  will  deliver  this  note  to  thee  is  instructed  to  con- 
duct thec  to  me.  1  am  waiting  for  thee.  Come  with  confi- 
dence." 

M.  Leblanc  had  written  the  whole  of  this. 

Tlu'nardier  resumed: — 


Tin;  WICKED  POO  it  .MAN  205 

"Ah!  erase  'come  with  confidence';  that  might  lead  her  to 
suppose  that  everything  was  not  as  it  should  he,  and  that  dis- 
trust is  possible." 

M.  Leblanc  erased  the  three  words. 

"Now,"  pursued  Thenardier,  "sign  it.  What's  your 
name  ?" 

The  prisoner  laid  down  the  pen  and  demanded:— 

"For  whom  is  this  letter?" 

"You  know  well,  retorted  Thenardier,  "for  the  little  one 
I  just  told  you  so." 

It  was  evident  that  Thenardier  avoided  naming  the  young 
girl  in  question.  He  said  "the  Lark,"  he  said  "the  little 
one,"  but  he  did  not  pronounce  her  name — the  precaution  of  a 
clever  man  guarding  his  secret  from  his  accomplices.  To 
mention  the  name  was  to  deliver  the  whole  "affair"  into  their 
hands,  and  to  tell  them  more  about  it  than  there  was  any  need 
of  their  knowing. 

He  went  on : — 

"Sign.    What  is  your  name  ?" 

"Urbain  Fabre,"  said  the  prisoner. 

Thenardier,  with  the  movement  of  a  cat,  dashed  his  hand 
into  his  pocket  and  drew  out  the  handkerchief  which  had  been 
seized  on  M.  Leblanc.  He  looked  for  the  mark  on  it,  and  held 
it  close  to  the  candle. 

"U.  F.    That's  it.    Urbain  Fabre.    Well,  sign  it  U.  F." 

The  prisoner  signed. 

"As  two  hands  are  required  to  fold  the  letter,  give  it  to  me, 
I  will  fold  it." 

That  done,  Thenardier  resumed : — 

"Address  it,  'Mademoiselle  Fabre,'  at  your  house.  T  know 
that  you  live  a  long  distance  from  here,  near  Saint- Jacques- 
du-Haut-Pas,  because  you  go  to  mass  there  every  day,  but  I 
don't  know  in  what  street.  I  see  that  you  understand  your 
situation.  As  you  have  not  lied  about  your  name,  you  will  not 
lie  about  your  address.  Write  it  yourself." 

The  prisoner  paused  thoughtfully  for  a  moment,  then  he 
took  the  pen  and  wrote : — 


266  MAKIV8 

"Mademoiselle  Fabre,  at  M.  ITrbain  Fabre's.  Rue  Saint- 
Dominique-D'P]nfer,  No.  17." 

Thenardier  seized  the  letter  with  a  sort  of  feverish  con- 
vulsion. 

"Wife!"  he  cried. 

The  Thenardier  woman  hastened  to  him. 

"Here's  the  letter.  You  know  what  you  have  to  do.  There 
is  a  carriage  at  the  door.  Set  out  at  once,  and  return 
ditto." 

And  addressing  the  man  with  the  meat-axe: — 

"Since  you  have  taken  off  your  nose-screen,  accompany  the 
mistress.  You  will  get  up  behind  the  fiacre.  You  know  where 
you  left  the  team?" 

"Yes,"  said  the  man. 

And  depositing  his  axe  in  a  corner,  he  followed  Madame 
Thenardier. 

As  they  set  off,  Thenardier  thrust  his  head  through  the  half- 
open  door,  and  shouted  into  the  corridor : — 

"Above  all  things,  don't  lose  the  letter !  remember  that  you 
carry  two  hundred  thousand  francs  with  you  !" 

The  Thenardier's  hoarse  voice  replied  : — 

"Be  easy.    I  have  it  in  my  bosom." 

A  minute  had  not  elapsed,  when  the  sound  of  the  cracking  of 
a  whip  was  heard,  which  rapidly  retreated  and  died  away. 

"Good !"  growled  Thenardier.  "They're  going  at  a  fine 
pace.  At  such  a  gallop,  the  bourgeoise  will  be  back  inside 
three-quarters  of  an  hour." 

He  drew  a  chair  close  to  the  fireplace,  folding  his  arms,  and 
presenting  his  muddy  boots  to  the  brazier. 

"My  feet  are  cold !"  said  he. 

Only  five  ruffians  now  remained  in  the  den  with  Thenardier 
and  the  prisoner. 

These  men,  through  the  black  masks  or  paste  which  covered 
their  faces,  and  made  of  them,  at  fear's  pleasure,  charcoal- 
burners,  negroes,  or  demons,  had  a  stupid  and  gloomy  air,  and 
it  could  be  felt  that  they  perpetrated  a  crime  like  a  bit  of  work, 
tranquilly,  without  either  wrath  or  mercy,  with  a  sort  of  ennui. 


THE  WICKED  POOR  MAN  207 

They  were  crowded  together  in  one  corner  like  brutes,  and 
remained  silent. 

Thenardier  warmed  his  feet. 

The  prisoner  had  relapsed  into  his  taciturnity.  A  sombre 
calm  had  succeeded  to  the  wild  uproar  which  had  filled  the 
garret  but  a  few  moments  before. 

The  candle,  on  which  a  large  "stranger"  had  formed,  cast 
but  a  dim  light  in  the  immense  hovel,  the  brazier  had  grown 
dull,  and  all  those  monstrous  heads  cast  misshapen  shadows 
on  the  walls  and  ceiling. 

No  sound  was  audible  except  the  quiet  breathing  of  the  old 
drunken  man,  who  was  fast  asleep. 

Marius  waited  in  a  state  of  anxiety  that  was  augmented 
by  every  trifle.  The  enigma  was  more  impenetrable  than 
ever. 

Who  was  this  "little  one"  whom  Thenardier  had  called  the 
Lark  ?  Was  she  his  "Ursule"  ?  The  prisoner  had  not  seemed 
to  be  affected  by  that  word,  "the  Lark,"  and  had  replied  in  the 
most  natural  manner  in  the  world :  "I  do  not  know  what  you 
mean."  On  the  other  hand,  the  two  letters  U.  F.  were  ex- 
plained; they  meant  Urbain  Fabre;  and  Ursule  was  no  longer 
named  Ursule.  This  was  what  Marius  perceived  most  clearly 
of  all. 

A  sort  of  horrible  fascination  held  him  nailed  to  his  post, 
from  which  he  was  observing  and  commanding  this  whole 
scene.  There  he  stood,  almost  incapable  of  movement  or  re- 
flection, as  though  annihilated  by  the  abominable  things 
viewed  at  such  close  quarters.  He  waited,  in  the  hope  of  some 
incident,  no  matter  of  what  nature,  since  he  could  not  collect 
his  thoughts  and  did  not  know  upon  what  course  to  decide. 

"In  any  case,"  he  said,  "if  she  is  the  Lark,  I  shall  see  her, 
for  the  Thenardier  woman  is  to  bring  her  hither.  That  will 
be  the  end,  and  then  I  will  give  my  life  and  my  blood  if  neces- 
sary, but  I  will  deliver  her !  Nothing  shall  stop  me." 

Nearly  half  an  hour  passed  in  this  manner.  Thenardier 
seemed  to  be  absorbed  in  gloomy  reflections,  the  prisoner  did 
not  stir.  Still,  Marius  fancied  that  at  intervals,  and  for  the 


268  MARW8 

last  few  moments,  lie  had  heard  a  faint,  dull  noise  in  the  direc- 
tion of  the  prisoner. 

All  at  once,  Thenardier  addressed  the  prisoner :  — 

"By  the  way,  Monsieur  Fabre,  I  might  as  well  say  it  to  you 
at  once." 

These  few  words  appeared  to  he  the  beginning  of  an  explana- 
tion. Marius  strained  his  ears. 

"My  wife  will  be  back  shortly,  don't  get  impatient.  I  think 
that  the  Lark  really  is  your  daughter,  and  it  seems  to  me  quite 
natural  that  you  should  keep  her.  Only,  listen  to  me  a  bit. 
My  wife  will  go  and  hunt  her  up  with  your  letter.  I  told  my 
wife  to  dress  herself  in  the  way  she  did,  so  that  your  young 
lady  might  make  no  difficulty  about  following  her.  They  will 
both  enter  the  carriage  with  my  comrade  behind.  Somewhere, 
outside  the  barrier,  there  is  a  trap  harnessed  to  two  very 
good  horses.  Your  young  lady  will  be  taken  to  it.  She  will 
alight  from  the  fiacre.  My  comrade  will  enter  the  other  vehi- 
cle with  her,  and  my  wife  will  come  back  here  to  tell  us :  'It's 
done.'  As  for  the  young  lady,  no  harm  will  be  done  to  her ;  the 
trap  will  conduct  her  to  a  place  where  she  will  be  quiet,  and 
just  as  soon  as  you  have  handed  over  to  me  those  little  two 
hundred  thousand  francs,  she  will  be  returned  to  you.  If  you 
have  me  arrested,  my  comrade  will  give  a  turn  of  his  thumb  to 
the  Lark,  that's  all" 

The  prisoner  uttered  not  a  syllable.  After  a  pause,  Thenar- 
dier  continued : — 

"It's  very  simple,  as  you  see.  There'll  be  no  harm  done 
unless  you  wish  that  there  should  be  harm  done.  I'm  telling 
you  how  things  stand.  I  warn  you  so  that  you  may  be  pre- 
pared." 

He  paused :  the  prisoner  did  not  break  the  silence,  and  The- 
nardier  resumed: — 

"As  soon  as  my  wife  returns  and  says  to  me:  'The  Lark 
is  on  the  way,'  we  will  release  you,  and  you  will  be  free  to 
go  and  sleep  at  home.  You  see  that  our  intentions  are  not 
evil." 

Terrible  images  passed  through  Marius'  mind.  What !  That 


THE  WICKED  POOR  MAX  269 

young  girl  whom  they  were  abducting  was  not  to  be  brought 
back  ?  One  of  those  monsters  was  to  bear  her  off  into  the  dark- 
ness? Whither?  And  what  if  it  were  she! 

It  was  clear  that  it  was  she.  Marius  felt  his  heart  stop 
beating. 

What  was  he  to  do?  Discharge  the  pistol?  Place  all  those 
scoundrels  in  the  hands  of  justice  ?  But  the  horrbile  man  with 
the  rneat-axe  would,  none  the  less,  be  out  of  reach  with  the 
young  girl,  and  Marius  reflected  on  Thenardier's  words,  of 
which  he  perceived  the  bloody  significance:  "If  you  have  me 
arrested,  my  comrade  will  give  a  turn  of  his  thumb  to  the 
Lark." 

Now,  it  was  not  alone  by  the  colonel's  testament,  it  was  by 
his  own  love,  it  was  by  the  peril  of  the  one  he  loved,  that  he 
felt  himself  restrained. 

This  frightful  situation,  which  had  already  lasted  above  half 
an  hour,  was  changing  its  aspect  every  moment. 

Marius  had  sufficient  strength  of  mind  to  review  in  succes- 
sion all  the  most  heart-breaking  conjectures,  seeking  hope  and 
finding  none. 

The  tumult  of  his  thoughts  contrasted  with  the  funereal 
silence  of  the  den. 

In  the  midst  of  this  silence,  the  door  at  the  bottom  of  the 
staircase  was  heard  to  open  and  shut  again. 

The  prisoner  made  a  movement  in  his  bonds. 

"Here's  the  bourgeoise,"  said  Thenardier. 

He  had  hardly  uttered  the  words,  when  the  Thenardier 
woman  did  in  fact  rush  hastily  into  the  room,  red,  panting, 
breathless,  with  flaming  eyes,  and  cried,  as  she  smote  her  huge 
hands  on  her  thighs  simultaneously : — 

"False  address !" 

The  ruffian  who  had  gone  with  her  made  his  appearance 
Dehind  her  and  picked  up  his  axe  again. 

She  resumed : — 

"Nobody  there!  Rue  Saint-Dominique,  No.  17,  no  Mon- 
sieur Urbain  Fabrc  !  They  kno  .v  not  what  it  means  !" 

She  paused,  choking,  then  went  on: — 


270  MARIU8 

"Monsieur  Thenardier!  That  old  fellow  has  duped  you! 
You  are  too  good,  you  see !  If  it  had  been  me,  I'd  have 
chopped  the  beast  in  four  quarters  to  begin  with !  And  if  he 
had  acted  ugly,  I'd  have  boiled  him  alive !  He  would  have 
been  obliged  to  speak,  and  say  where  the  girl  is  and  where  he 
keeps  his  shiners !  That's  the  way  I  should  have  managed 
matters !  People  are  perfectly  right  when  they  say  that  men 
are  a  deal  stupider  than  women!  Nobody  at  Xo.  17.  It's 
nothing  but  a  big  carriage  gate !  No  Monsieur  Fabre  in  the 
Rue  Saint-Dominique !  And  after  all  that  racing  and  fee  to 
the  coachman  and  all !  I  spoke  to  both  the  porter  and  the 
portress,  a  fine,  stout  woman,  and  they  know  nothing  about 
him!" 

Marius  breathed  freely  once  more. 

She,  Ursule  or  the  Lark,  he  no  longer  knew  what  to  call  her, 
was  safe. 

While  his  exasperated  wife  vociferated,  Thenardier  had 
seated  himself  on  the  table. 

For  several  minutes  he  uttered  not  a  word,  but  swung  his 
right  foot,  which  hung  down,  and  stared  at  the  brazier  with  an 
air  of  savage  revery. 

Finally,  he  said  to  the  prisoner,  with  a  slow  and  singularly 
ferocious  tone: 

"A  false  address?    What  did  you  expect  to  gain  by  that?" 

"To  gain  time!"  cried  the  prisoner  in  a  thundering  voice, 
and  at  the  same  instant  he  shook  off  his  bonds ;  they  were  cut. 
The  prisoner  was  only  attached  to  the  bed  now  by  one  leg. 

Before  the  seven  men  had  time  to  collect  their  senses  and 
dash  forward,  he  had  bent  down  into  the  fireplace,  had  stretched 
out  his  hand  to  the  brazier,  and  had  then  straightened  himself 
up  again,  and  now  Thenardier,  the  female  Thenardier,  and  the 
ruffians,  huddled  in  amazement  at  the  extremity  of  the  hovel, 
stared  at  him  in  stupefaction,  as  almost  free  and  in  a  formid- 
able attitude,  he  brandished  above  his  head  the  red-hot  chisel, 
which  emitted  a  threatening  glow. 

The  judicial  examination  to  which  the  ambush  in  the  Gor- 
beau  house  eventually  gave  rise,  established  the  fact  that  a 


THE  WICKED  POOR  MAX  271 

large  sou  piece,  cut  and  worked  in  a  peculiar  fashion,  was 
found  in  the  garret,  when  the  police  made  their  descent  on  it. 
This  sou  piece  was  one  of  those  marvels  of  industry,  which  are 
engendered  by  the  patience  of  the  galleys  in  the  shadows  and 
for  the  shadows,  marvels  which  are  nothing  else  than  instru- 
ments of  escape.  These  hideous  and  delicate  products  of  won- 
derful art  are  to  jewellers'  work  what  the  metaphors  of  slang 
are  to  poetry.  There  are  Benvenuto  Cellinis  in  the  galleys,  just 
as  there  are  Villons  in  language.  The  unhappy  wretch  who 
aspires  to  deliverance  finds  means  sometimes  without  tools, 
sometimes  with  a  common  wooden-handled  knife,  to  saw  a  sou 
into  two  thin  plates,  to  hollow  out  these  plates  without  affect- 
ing the  coinage  stamp,  and  to  make  a  furrow  on  the  edge  of 
the  sou  in  such  a  manner  that  the  plates  will  adhere  again. 
This  can  be  screwed  together  and  unscrewed  at  will ;  it  is  a  box. 
In  this  box  he  hides  a  watch-spring,  and  this  watch-spring, 
properly  handled,  cuts  good-sized  chains  and  bars  of  iron.  The 
unfortunate  convict  is  supposed  to  possess  merely  a  sou ;  not  at 
all,  he  possesses  liberty.  It  was  a  large  sou  of  this  sort  which, 
during  the  subsequent  search  of  the  police,  was  found  under 
the  bed  near  the  window.  They  also  found  a  tiny  saw  of  blue 
steel  which  would  fit  the  sou. 

It  is  probable  that  the  prisoner  had  this  sou  piece  on  his 
person  at  the  moment  when  the  ruffians  searched  him,  that  he 
contrived  to  conceal  it  in  his  hand,  and  that  afterward,  having 
his  right  hand  free,  he  unscrewed  it,  and  used  it  as  a  saw  to  cut 
the  cords  which  fastened  him,  which  would  explain  the  faint 
noise  and  almost  imperceptible  movements  which  Marius  had 
observed. 

As  he  had  not  been  able  to  bend  down,  for  fear  of  betraying 
himself,  he  had  not  cut  the  bonds  of  his  left  leg. 

The  ruflians  had  recovered  from  their  first  surprise. 

"Be  easy,"  said  Bigrenaille  to  Thenardier.  "He  still  holds 
by  one  leg,  and  he  can't  get  away.  I'll  answer  for  that.  1 
tied  that  paw  for  him." 

In  the  meanwhile,  the  prisoner  had  begun  to  speak : — 

"You  are  wretches,  but  my  life  is  not  worth  the  trouble  of 


272  MARWS 

defending  it.  When  you  think  that  you  can  make  me  speak, 
that  you  can  make  me  write  what  I  do  not  choose  to  write,  that 
you  can  make  me  say  what  I  do  not  choose  to  say — 

He  stripped  up  his  left  sleeve,  and  added : — 

"See  here." 

At  the  same  moment  he  extended  his  arm,  and  laid  the 
glowing  chisel  which  he  held  in  his  left  hand  by  its  wooden 
handle  on  his  bare  flesh. 

The  crackling  of  the  burning  flesh  became  audible,  and  the 
odor  peculiar  to  chambers  of  torture  filled  the  hovel. 

Marius  reeled  in  utter  horror,  the  very  ruffians  shuddeied, 
hardly  a  muscle  of  the  old  man's  face  contracted,  and  while  the 
red-hot  iron  sank  into  the  smoking  wound,  impassive  and  al- 
most august,  he  fixed  on  Thenardier  his  beautiful  glance,  in 
which  there  was  no  hatred,  and  where  suffering  vanished  in 
serene  majesty. 

With  grand  and  lofty  natures,  the  revolts  of  the  flesh  and 
the  senses  when  subjected  to  physical  suffering  cause  the  soul 
to  spring  forth,  and  make  it  appear  on  the  brow,  just  as  rebel- 
lions among  the  soldiery  force  the  captain  to  show  himself. 

"Wretches !"  said  he,  "have  no  more  fear  of  me  than  I 
have  for  you !" 

And,  tearing  the  chisel  from  the  wound,  he  hurled  it 
through  the  window,  which  had  been  left  open;  the  horrible, 
glowing  tool  disappeared  into  the  night,  whirling  as  it  flew, 
and  fell  far  away  on  the  snow. 

The  prisoner  resumed: — 

"Do  what  you  please  with  me."    He  was  disarmed. 

"Seize  him  !"  said  Thenardier. 

Two  of  the  ruffians  laid  their  hands  on  his  shoulder,  and 
the  masked  man  with  the  ventriloquist's  voice  took  up  his  sta- 
tion in  front  of  him,  ready  to  smash  his  skull  at  the  slightest 
movement. 

At  the  same  time,  Marius  heard  below  him,  at  the  base  of  the 
partition,  but  so  near  that  he  could  not  see  who  was  speaking, 
this  colloquy  conducted  in  a  low  tone: — 

"There  is  only  one  thing  left  to  do." 


TEE  WICKED  POOR  MAN  273 

"Cut  his  throat." 

"That's  it." 

Tt  was  the  husband  and  wife  taking  counsel  together. 

Thenardier  walked  slowly  towards  the  table,  opened  the 
drawer,  and  took  out  the  knife.  Marius  fretted  with  the 
handle  of  his  pistol.  Unprecedented  perplexity!  For  the  last 
hour  he  had  had  two  voices  in  his  conscience,  the  one  enjoining 
him  to  respect  his  father's  testament,  the  other  crying  to  him 
to  rescue  the  prisoner.  These  two  voices  continued  uninter- 
ruptedly that  struggle  which  tormented  him  to  agony.  Up  to 
that  moment  he  had  cherished  a  vague  hope  that  he  should  find 
some  means  of  reconciling  these  two  duties,  but  nothing  within 
the  limits  of  possibility  had  presented  itself. 

However,  the  peril  was  urgent,  the  last  bounds  of  delay  had 
been  reached;  Thenardier  was  standing  thoughtfully  a  few 
paces  distant  from  the  prisoner. 

Marius  cast  a  wild  glance  about  him,  the  last  mechanical 
resource  of  despair.  All  at  once  a  shudder  ran  through 
him. 

At  his  feet,  on  the  table,  a  bright  ray  of  light  from  the  full 
moon  illuminated  and  seemed  to  point  out  to  him  a  sheet  of 
paper.  On  this  paper  he  read  the  following  line  written  that 
very  morning,  in  large  letters,  by  the  eldest  of  the  Thenardier 
girls : — 

"THE  BOBBIES  ARE  HERE." 

An  idea,  a  flash,  crossed  Marius'  mind;  this  was  the  expe- 
dient of  which  he  was  in  search,  the  solution  of  that  frightful 
problem  which  was  torturing  him,  of  sparing  the  assassin  and 
saving  the  victim. 

lie  knelt  down  on  his  commode,  stretched  out  his  arm,  seized 
the  sheet  of  paper,  softly  detached  a  bit  of  plaster  from  the 
wall,  wrapped  the  paper  round  it,  and  tossed  the  whole  through 
the  crevice  into  the  middle  of  the  den. 

It  was  high  time.  Thenardier  had  conquered  his  last  fears 
or  his  last  scruples,  and  was  advancing  on  the  prisoner. 

"Something  is  falling!"  cried  the  Thenardier  woman. 

"What  is  it?"  asked  her  husband. 


974  MARIDB 

The  woman  darted  forward  and  picked  up  the  bit  of  plaster. 
She  handed  it  to  her  husband. 

"Where  did  this  come  from  ?"  demanded  Thenardier. 

"Pardie!"  ejaculated  his  wife,  "where  do  you  suppose  it 
came  from  ?  Through  the  window,  of  course." 

"I  saw  it  pass/'  said  Bigrenaille. 

Thenardier  rapidly  unfolded  the  paper  and  held  it  close  to 
the  candle. 

"It's  in  fiponine's  handwriting.    The  devil !" 

He  made  a  sign  to  his  wife,  who  hastily  drew  near,  and 
showed  her  the  line  written  on  the  sheet  of  paper,  then  he 
added  in  a  subdued  voice : — 

"Quick !  The  ladder !  Let's  leave  the  bacon  in  the  mouse- 
trap and  decamp !" 

"Without  cutting  that  man's  throat  ?"  asked  the  Thenardier 
woman. 

"We  haven't  the  time." 

"Through  what?"  resumed  Bigrenaille. 

"Through  the  window/'  replied  Thenardier.  "Since  Ponine 
has  thrown  the  stone  through  the  window,  it  indicates  that  the 
house  is  not  watched  on  that  side." 

The  mask  with  the  ventriloquist's  voice  deposited  his  huge 
key  on  the  floor,  raised  both  arms  in  the  air,  and  opened  and 
clenched  his  fists  three  times  rapidly  without  uttering  a  word. 

This  was  the  signal  like  the  signal  for  clearing  the  decks  for 
action  on  board  ship. 

The  ruffians  who  were  holding  the  prisoner  released  him ;  in 
the  twinkling  of  an  eye  the  rope  ladder  was  unrolled  outside 
the  window,  and  solidly  fastened  to  the  sill  by  the  two  iron 
hooks. 

The  prisoner  paid  no  attention  to  what  was  going  on  around 
him.  He  seemed  to  be  dreaming  or  praying. 

As  soon  as  the  ladder  was  arranged,  Thenardier  cried : 

"Come !  the  bourgeoise  first !" 

And  he  rushed  headlong  to  the  window. 

But  just  as  he  was  about  to  throw  his  leg  over,  Bigrenaille 
seized  him  roughly  by  the  collar. 


THE  WICKED  POOR  MAX  275 

"Not  much,  come  now,  you  old  dog,  after  us !" 

"After  us  !"  yelled  the  ruffians. 

"You  are  children,"  said  Thenardier,  "we  are  losing  time. 
The  police  are  on  our  heels." 

"Well,  said  the  ruffians,  "let's  draw  lots  to  see  who  shall 
go  down  first." 

Thenardier  exclaimed : — 

"Are  you  mad  !  Are  you  crazy  !  What  a  pack  of  boobies ! 
You  want  to  waste  time,  do  you  ?  Draw  lots,  do  you  ?  By  a 
wet  finger,  by  a  short  straw !  With  written  names !  Thrown 
into  a  hat ! — 

"Would  you  like  my  hat  ?"  cried  a  voice  on  the  threshold. 

All  wheeled  round.    It  was  Javert. 

He  had  his  hat  in  his  hand,  and  was  holding  it  out  to  them 
with  a  smile. 

CHAPTER   XXI 


AT  nightfall,  Javert  had  posted  his  men  and  had  gone  into 
ambush  himself  between  the  trees  of  the  Rue  de  la  Barriere- 
des-Gobelins  which  faced  the  Gorbeau  house,  on  the  other  side 
of  the  boulevard.  He  had  begun  operations  by  opening  "his 
pockets,"  and  dropping  into  it  the  two  young  girls  who  were 
charged  with  keeping  a  watch  on  the  approaches  to  the  den. 
But  he  had  only  "caged"  Azelma.  As  for  ftponine,  she  was 
not  at  her  post,  she  had  disappeared,  and  he  had  not  been  able 
to  seize  her.  Then  Javert  had  made  a  point  and  had  bent  his 
ear  to  waiting  for  the  signal  agreed  upon.  The  comings  and 
goings  of  the  fiacres  had  greatly  agitated  him.  At  last,  he  had 
grown  impatient,  and,  sure  that  there  was  a  nest  there,  sure  of 
being  in  "luck,"  having  recognized  many  of  the  ruffians  who 
had  entered,  he  had  finally  decided  to  go  upstairs  without  wait- 
ing for  the  pistol-shot. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  he  had  Marius'  pass-key. 

He  had  arrived  just  in  the  nick  of  time. 


276  MARIU8 

The  terrified  ruffians  flung  themselves  on  the  arms  which 
they  had  abandoned  in  all  the  corners  at  the  moment  of  flight. 
In  less  than  a  second,  these  seven  men,  horrible  to  behold,  had 
grouped  themselves  in  an  attitude  of  defence,  one  with  his 
meat-axe,  another  with  his  key,  another  with  his  bludgeon,  the 
rest  with  shears,  pincers,  and  hammers.  Thenardier  had  his 
knife  in  his  fist.  The  Thenardier  woman  snatched  up  an 
enormous  paving-stone  which  lay  in  the  angle  of  the  window 
and  served  her  daughters  as  an  ottoman. 

Javert  put  on  his  hat  again,  and  advanced  a  couple  of  paces 
into  the  room,  with  arms  folded,  his  cane  under  one  arm,  his 
sword  in  its  sheath. 

"Halt  there,"  said  he.  "You  shall  not  go  out  by  the 
window,  you  shall  go  through  the  door.  It's  less  unhealthy. 
There  are  seven  of  you,  there  are  fifteen  of  us.  Don't  let's 
fall  to  collaring  each  other  like  men  of  Auvergne." 

Bigrenaille  drew  out  a  pistol  which  he  had  kept  concealed 
under  his  blouse,  and  put  it  in  Thenardier's  hand,  whispering 
in  the  latter's  ear: — 

"It's  Javert.    I  don't  dare  fire  at  that  man.    Do  you  dare?" 

"Parbleu !"  replied  Thenardier. 

"Well,  then,  fire." 

Thenardier  took  the  pistol  and  aimed  at  Javert. 

Javert.  who  was  only  three  paces  from  him,  stared  intently 
at  him  and  contented  himself  with  saying: — 

"Come  now,  don't  fire.     You'll  miss  fire." 

Thdnardier  pulled  the  trigger.    The  pistol  missed  fire. 

"Didn't  I  tell  you  so !"  ejaculated  Javert. 

Bigrenaille  flung  his  bludgeon  at  Javert's  feet. 

"You're  the  emperor  of  the  fiends !   I  surrender.'* 

"And  you?"  Javert  asked  the  rest  of  the  ruffians. 

They  replied: — 

"So'do  we." 

Javert  began  again  calmly: — 

"That's  right,  that's  good,  I  said  so,  you  are  nice  fellows." 

"I  only  ask  one  thing,"  said  Bigrenaille,  "and  that  is,  that 
I  mav  not  be  denied  tobacco  while  I  am  in  confinement." 


THE  WICKED  POOR  MAN  277 

"Granted,"  said  Javert. 

And  turning  round  and  calling  behind  him: — 

"Come  in  now !" 

A  squad  of  policemen,  sword  in  hand,  and  agents  armed 
with  bludgeons  and  cudgels,  rushed  in  at  Javert's  summons. 
They  pinioned  the  ruffians. 

This  throng  of  men,  sparely  lighted  by  the  single  candle, 
filled  the  den  with  shadows. 

"Handcuff  them  all!"  shouted  Javert. 

"Come  on  !"  cried  a  voice  which  was  not  the  voice  of  a  man, 
but  of  which  no  one  would  ever  have  said:  "It  is  a  woman's 
voice." 

The  Thenardicr  woman  had  entrenched  herself  in  one  of 
the  angles  of  the  window,  and  it  was  she  who  had  just  given 
vent  to  this  roar. 

The  policemen  and  agents  recoiled. 

She  had  thrown  off  her  shawl,  but  retained  her  bonnet ;  her 
husband,  who  was  crouching  behind  her,  was  almost  hidden 
under  the  discarded  shawl,  and  she  was  shielding  him  with  her 
body,  as  she  elevated  the  paving-stone  above  her  head  with 
the  gesture  of  a  giantess  on  the  point  of  hurling  a  rock. 

"Beware !"  she  shouted. 

All  crowded  back  towards  the  corridor.  A  broad  open  space 
was  cleared  in  the  middle  of  the  garret. 

The  Thenardier  woman  cast  a  glance  at  the  ruffians  who 
had  allowed  themselves  to  be  pinioned,  and  muttered  in  hoarse 
and  guttural  accents : — 

"The  cowards!" 

Javert  smiled,  and  advanced  across  the  open  space  which 
the  Thenardicr  was  devouring  with  her  eyes. 

"Don't  come  near  me,"  she  cried,  "or  I'll  crush  you." 

"What  a  grenadier !"  ejaculated  Javert ;  "you've  got  a 
beard  like  a  man,  mother,  but  I  have  claws  like  a  woman." 

And  he  continued  to  advance. 

The  Thenardier,  dishevelled  and  terrible,  set  her  feet  far 
apart,  threw  herself  backwards,  and  hurled  the  paving-stone 
at  Javert's  head.  Javert  ducked,  the  stone  passed  over  him, 


278  MARIV8 

struck  the  wall  behind,  knocked  off  a  huge  piece  of  plastering, 
and,  rebounding  from  angle  to  angle  across  the  hovel,  now 
luckily  almost  empty,  rested  at  Javert's  feet. 

At  the  same  moment,  Javert  reached  the  Thenardier  couple. 
One  of  his  big  hands  descended  on  the  woman's  shoulder;  the 
other  on  the  husband's  head. 

"The  handcuffs !"  he  shouted. 

The  policemen  trooped  in  in  force,  and  in  a  few  seconds 
Javert's  order  had  been  executed. 

The  Thenardier  female,  overwhelmed,  stared  at  her  pin- 
ioned hands,  and  at  those  of  her  husband,  who  had  dropped 
to  the  floor,  and  exclaimed,  weeping: — 

"My  daughters!" 

"They  are  in  the  jug,"  said  Javert. 

In  the  meanwhile,  the  agents  had  caught  eight  of  the 
drunken  man  asleep  behind  the  door,  and  were  shaking 
him: — 

He  awoke,  stammering: — 

"Is  it  all  over,  Jondrette  ?" 

"Yes,"  replied  Javert. 

The  six  pinioned  ruffians  were  standing,  and  still  preserved 
their  spectral  mien ;  all  three  besmeared  with  black,  all  three 
masked. 

"Keep  on  your  masks."  said  Javert. 

And  passing  them  in  review  with  a  glance  of  a  Frederick  II. 
at  a  Potsdam  parade,  he  said  to  the  three  "chimney-build- 
ers" :— 

"Good  day,  Bigrenaille !  good  day,  Brujon  !  good  day,  Deux- 
milliards !" 

Then  turning  to  the  three  masked  men,  he  said  to  the  man 
with  the  meat-axe: — 

"Good  day,  Gueulemer!" 

And  to  the  man  with  the  cudgel: — 

"Good  day,  Babet !" 

And  to  the  ventriloquist: — 

"Your  health,  Claquesous." 

At  that  moment,  he  caught  sight  of  the  ruffians'  prisoner, 


THE  WICKED  POOR  MAN  279 

who,  ever  since  the  entrance  of  the  police,  had  not  uttered  a 
word,  and  had  held  his  head  down. 

"Untie  the  gentleman !"  said  Javert,  "and  let  no  one  go 
out !" 

That  said,  he  seated  himself  with  sovereign  dignity  before 
the  table,  where  the  candle  and  the  writing-materials  still 
remained,  drew  a  stamped  paper  from  his  pocket,  and  began 
to  prepare  his  report. 

When  he  had  written  the  first  lines,  which  are  formulas  that 
never  vary,  he  raised  his  eyes : — 

"Let  the  gentleman  whom  these  gentlemen  bound  step  for- 
ward." 

The  policemen  glanced  round  them. 

"Well,"  said  Javert,  "where  is  he?" 

The  prisoner  of  the  ruffians,  M.  Leblanc,  M.  Urbain  Fabre, 
the  father  of  Ursule  or  the  Lark,  had  disappeared. 

The  door  was  guarded,  but  the  window  was  not.  As  soon 
as  he  had  found  himself  released  from  his  bonds,  and  while 
Javert  was  drawing  up  his  report,  he  had  taken  advantage  of 
confusion,  the  crowd,  the  darkness,  and  of  a  moment  when  the 
general  attention  was  diverted  from  him,  to  dash  out  of  the 
window. 

An  agent  sprang  to  the  opening  and  looked  out.  He  saw  no 
one  outside. 

The  rope  ladder  was  still  shaking. 

"The  devil !"  ejaculated  Javert  between  his  teeth,  "he  must 
have  been  the  most  valuable  of  the  lot." 


CHAPTER    XXII 

THE  LITTLE  ONE  WHO  WAS  CRYING  IN  VOLUME  TWO 

ON  the  day  following  that  on  which  these  events  took  place 
in  the  house  on  the  Boulevard  de  I'Hopital,  a  child,  who 
seemed  to  be  coming  from  the  direction  of  the  bridge  of 
Austerlitz,  was  ascending  the  side-alley  on  the  right  in  the 
direction  of  the  Barriere  de  Fontainebleau. 


280  MARIUS 

Night  had  fully  come. 

This  lad  was  pale,  thin,  clad  in  rags,  with  linen  trousers  in 
the  month  of  February,  and  was  singing  at  the  top  of  his  voice. 

At  the  corner  of  the  Rue  du  Petit-Banquier.  a  bent  old 
woman  was  rummaging  in  a  heap  of  refuse  by  the  light  of  a 
street  lantern ;  the  child  jostled  her  as  he  passed,  then  recoiled, 
exclaiming : — 

"Hello  !    And  I  took  it  for  an  enormous,  enormous  dog  !" 

He  pronounced  the  word  enormous  the  second  time  with  a 
jeering  swell  of  the  voice  which  might  be  tolerably  well  repre- 
sented by  capitals:  "an  enormous,  ENORMOUS  dog." 

The  old  woman  straightened  herself  up  in  a  fury. 

"Nasty  brat !"  she  grumbled.  "If  I  hadn't  been  bending 
over,  I  know  well  where  I  would  have  planted  my  foot  on 
you." 

The  boy  was  already  far  away. 

"Kisss !  kisss !"  he  cried.  "After  that,  I  don't  think  I  was 
mistaken !" 

The  old  woman,  choking  with  indignation,  now  rose  com- 
pletely upright,  and  the  red  gleam  of  the  lantern  fully  lighted 
tip  her  livid  face,  all  hollowed  into  angles  and  wrinkles,  with 
crow's-feet  meeting  the  corners  of  her  mouth. 

Her  body  was  lost  in  the  darkness,  and  only  her  head  was 
visible.  One  would  have  pronounced  her  a  mask  of  Decrepi- 
tude carved  out  by  a  light  from  the  night. 

The  boy  surveyed  her. 

"Madame,"  said  he.  "does  not  possess  that  style  of  beauty 
which  pleases  me." 

He  then  pursued  his  road,  and  resumed  his  song: — 

"Le  roi  Coupdesabot 
S'en  allait  ft  la  chasse, 
A  la  chasse  aux  corbenux — " 

At  the  end  of  these  three  lines  he  paused.  He  had  arrived 
in  front  of  No.  50-52,  and  finding  the  door  fastened,  he  began 
to  assault  it  with  resounding  and  heroic  kicks,  which  betrayed 
rather  the  man's  shoes  that  he  was  wearing  than  the  child's 
feet  which  he  owned. 


TEE  WICKED  POOR  MAN  281 

In  the  meanwhile,  the  very  old  woman  whom  he  had  encoun- 
tered at  the  corner  of  the  Rue  du  Petit-Banquier  hastened  up 
behind  him,  uttering  clamorous  cries  and  indulging  in  lavish 
and  exaggerated  gestures. 

"What's  this?  What's  this?  Lord  God!  He's  battering 
the  door  down !  He's  knocking  the  house  down." 

The  kicks  continued. 

The  old  woman  strained  her  lungs. 

"Is  that  the  way  buildings  are  treated  nowadays?" 

All  at  once  she  paused. 

She  had  recognized  the  gamin. 

"What!  so  it's  that  imp!" 

"Why,  it's  the  old  lady,"  said  the  lad.  "Good  day,  Bougon- 
muche.  I  have  come  to  see  my  ancestors." 

The  old  woman  retorted  with  a  composite  grimace,  and  a 
wonderful  improvisation  of  hatred  taking  advantage  of  feeble- 
ness and  ugliness,  which  was,  unfortunately,  wasted  in  the 
dark : — 

"There's  no  one  here." 

"Bah!"  retorted  the  boy,  "where's  my  father?" 

"At  La  Force." 

"Come,  now  !    And  my  mother  ?" 

"At  Saint-Lazare." 

"Well!     And  my  sisters?" 

"At  the  Madelonettes." 

The  lad  scratched  his  head  behind  his  ear,  stared  at  Ma'am 
Bougon,  and  said: — 

"Ah !" 

Then  he  executed  a  pirouette  on  his  heel ;  a  moment  later, 
the  old  woman,  who  had  remained  on  the  door-step,  heard 
him  singing  in  his  clear,  young  voice,  as  he  plunged  under 
the  black  elm-trees,  in  the  wintry  wind : — 

"Le  roi  Coupdesabot1 
S'en  allait  ft  la  chasse, 
A  la  chasae  aux  corbeaux, 
Mont£  sur  deux  e"chasses. 
Quand  on  passait  dessous, 
On   hii   payait  deux  sous." 

'King  Bootkick  went  a-hunting  after  crows,  mounted  on  two  stilts. 
When  one  passed  beneath  them,  one  paid  him  two  sous. 


SAINT-DENIS. 


COPYRIGHT,  1887. 
Bv  THOMAS  Y.  CROWKLL  &  Co 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER   BOOK  FIRST.— A  FEW  PAGES  OF  HISTORY  pAQE 

I.     Well  Cut 1 

II.     Badly  Sewed 7 

III.  Louis    Philippe 11 

IV.  Cracks   beneath   the   Foundation 18 

V.     Facts  whence  History  springs  and  which  History  ignores  26 

VI.     Enjolras  and  his  Lieutenants 39 

BOOK  SECOND.— F^PONINE 

I.     The   Lark's   Meadow 45 

II.     Embryonic  Formation  of  Crimes  in  the  Incubation  of 

Prisons 51 

III.  Apparition  to  Father  Mabeuf 56 

IV.  An  Apparition  to  Marius 61 

BOOK  THIRD.— THE  HOUSE  IN  THE  RUE  PLUMET 

I.     The  House  with  a  Secret 67 

II.     Jean  Valjean  as  a  National  Guard 72 

III.  Foliis  ac  Frondibus 75 

IV.  Change  of  Gate 79 

V.     The  Rose  perceives  that  it  is  an  Engine  of  War     .      .  84 

VI.     The    Battle    Begun 89 

VII.     To  One  Sadness  oppose  a  Sadness  and  a  Half     ...  93 

VIII.     The  Chain-Gang 98 

BOOK    FOURTH.— SUCCOR    FROM    BELOW    MAY    TURN  OUT 
TO  UK   SUCCOR   FROM  OX  HIGH 

I.     A  Wound  without.    Healing  within 110 

II.     Mother    Plutaique   finds   no    Difficulty   in   explaining   a 

Phenomenon               ...  113 


ir  CONTENTS 

BOOK  FIFTH.— THE  END  OF  WHICH  DOES  NOT  RESEMBLE 
CHAFTEB  THE   BEGINNING  PAOE 

I.     Solitude  and  Barracks  Combined 122 

II.     Cosette's     Apprehensions 124 

III.  Enriched  with  Commentaries  by  Toussaint     ....  128 

IV.  A  Heart  beneath  a  Stone 131 

V.     Cosette   after    the   Letter 136 

VI.     Old  People  are  made  to  go  out  opportunely     ....  138 

BOOK  SIXTH.— LITTLE  GAVROCHE 

I.     The   Malicious    Playfulness    of    the    Wind     ....  143 
II.     In  which  Little  Gavroche  extracts  Profit  from  Napoleon 

the    Great 147 

III.     The    Vicissitudes    of    Flight 172 

BOOK  SEVENTH.— SLANG 

I.     Origin 187 

II.     Roots 195 

III.  Slang  which  weeps  and  Slang  which  laughs     ....  204 

IV.  The  Two  Duties:   To  Watch  and  to  Hope     ....  209 

BOOK  EIGHTH.— ENCHANTMENTS  AND  DESOLATIONS 

I.     Full    Light 214 

II.     The  Bewilderment  of  Perfect  Happiness 220 

III.  The  Beginning  of  Shadow 222 

IV.  A  Cab  runs  in  English  and  barks  in  Slang     ....  226 
V.     Things    of    the    Night 234 

VI.     Marius  becomes  Practical  once  more  to  the  Extent  of 

Giving  Cosette  his  Address 235 

VII.     The  Old  Heart  and  the  Young  Heart  in  the  Presence 

of   Each   Other 241 

BOOK   NINTH.— WHITHER   ARE   THEY   GOING? 

I.     Jean    Valjean 256 

II.     Marius 258 

III.     M.    Mabeuf        ....  261 


CONTENTS  T 

CHAKfER        BOOK  TENTH.— THE  5ra  OF  JUNE,  1832  pAQE 

I.     The  Surface  of  the  Question 266 

II.     The   Root   of   the   Matter 270 

III.  A  Burial;  an  Occasion  to  be  born  again 276 

IV.  The  Ebullitions  of  Former  Days 282 

V.     Originality    of    Paris 288 

BOOK    ELEVENTH.— THE    ATOM    FRATERNIZES    WITH    THE 
HURRICANE 

I.     Some  Explanations  with  Regard  to  the  Origin  of  Gav- 
roche's  Poetry.     The  Influence  of  an  Academician  on 

this  Poetry 292 

II.     Gavroche    on    the    March 295 

III.  Just   Indignation  of  a  Hair-dresser 299 

IV.  The  Child  is  amazed  at  the  Old  Man 301 

V.     The    Old    Man 303 

VI.     Recruits 305 

BOOK  TWELFTH.— CORINTHE 

I.     History  of  Corinthe  from  its  Foundation     ....  308 

II.     Preliminary    Gayeties 314 

III.  Night  begins  to  descend  upon  Grantaire 325 

IV.  An  Attempt  to  console  the  Widow  Hucheloup     .      .      .  328 
V.     Preparations 332 

VI.     Waiting 335 

VII.     The  Man  recruited  in  the  Rue  des  Billettes     ....  338 
VIII.     Many   Interrogation  Points  with  Regard  to  a  Certain 

Le  Cabuc,  whose  Name  may  not  have  been  Le  Cabuc  342 

BOOK  THIRTEENTH.— MARIUS  ENTERS  THE  SHADOW 

I.     From   the  Rue  Plumet  to  the  Quartier  Saint-Denis      .  348 

II.     An  Owl's  View  of   Paris 351 

III.     The   Extreme  Edge 354 

BOOK   FOURTEENTH.— THE   GRANDEURS  OF  DESPAIR 

I.     The    Flag:    Act    First 361 

II.     The  Flag:   Act  Second 3«4 


ri  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

III.  Gavroche  would  have  done  better  to  accept  Enjolras' 

Carbine 367 

IV.  The  Barrel  of  Powder 369 

V.     End  of  the  Verses  of  Jean  Prouvaire 372 

VI.     The  Agony  of  Death  after  the  Agony  of  Life     .      .      .  374 

VII.     Gavroche  as  a  Profound  Calculator  of  Distances     .      .  379 

BOOK  FIFTEENTH.— THE  RUE  DE  L'HOMME  ARME 

I.     A   Drinker   is   a    Babbler 384 

II.     The  Street  Urchin  an  Enemy  of  Light 393 

III.  While  Cosette  and  Toussaint  are  Asleep      ....  398 

IV.  Gavroche's    Excess    of    Zeal  400 


SAINT-DENIS 


THE  IDYL  IN  THE  RUE  PLUMET  AND  THE  EPIC  IN  THE  RUE 
SAINT-DENIS 


BOOK  FIRST.— A  FEW  PAGES  OF  HISTORY 
CHAPTER   I 

WELL  CUT 

1831  and  1832,  the  two  years  which  are  immediately  con 
nected  with  the  Revolution  of  July,  form  one  of  the  most 
peculiar  and  striking  moments  of  history.  These  two  years 
rise  like  two  mountains  midway  between  those  which  precede 
and  those  which  follow  them.  They  have  a  revolutionary 
grandeur.  Precipices  are  to  be  distinguished  there.  The 
social  masses,  the  very  assizes  of  civilization,  the  solid  group 
of  superposed  and  adhering  interests,  the  century-old  profiles 
of  the  ancient  French  formation,  appear  and  disappear  in 
them  every  instant,  athwart  the  storm  clouds  of  systems,  of 
passions,  and  of  theories.  These  appearances  and  disappear- 
ances have  been  designated  as  movement  and  resistance.  At 
intervals,  truth,  that  daylight  of  the  human  soul,  can  be 
descried  shining  there. 

This  remarkable  epoch  is  decidedly  circumscribed  and  is 
beginning  to  be  sufficiently  distant  from  us  to  allow  of  our 
grasping  the  principal  lines  even  at  the  present  day. 

We  shall  make  the  attempt. 

The  Restoration  had  been  one  of  those  intermediate  phases, 
hard  to  define,  in  which  there  is  fatigue,  buzzing,  murmurs, 
sleep,  tumult,  and  which  are  nothing  else  than  the  arrival  of 
a  great  nation  at  a  halting-place. 


2  BAINT-DENIB 

These  epochs  are  peculiar  and  mislead  the  politicians  who 
desire  to  convert  them  to  profit.  In  the  beginning,  the  nation 
asks  nothing  but  repose;  it  thirsts  for  but  one  thing,  peace; 
it  has  but  one  ambition,  to  be  small.  Which  is  the  translation 
of  remaining  tranquil.  Of  great  events,  great  hazards,  great 
adventures,  great  men,  thank  God,  we  have  seen  enough,  we 
have  them  heaped  higher  than  our  heads.  We  would  exchange 
Cassar  for  Prusias,  and  Napoleon  for  the  King  of  Yvetot. 
"What  a  good  little  king  was  he !"  We  have  marched  since 
daybreak,  we  have  reached  the  evening  of  a  long  and  toilsome 
day ;  we  have  made  our  first  change  with  Mirabeau,  the  second 
with  Robespierre,  the  third  with  Bonaparte ;  we  are  worn  out. 
Each  one  demands  a  bed. 

Devotion  which  is  weary,  heroism  which  has  grown  old, 
ambitions  which  are  sated,  fortunes  which  are  made,  seek, 
demand,  implore,  solicit,  what?  A  shelter.  They  have  it. 
They  take  possession  of  peace,  of  tranquillity,  of  leisure; 
behold,  they  are  content.  But,  at  the  same  time  certain  facts 
arise,  compel  recognition,  and  knock  at  the  door  in  their 
turn.  These  facts  are  the  products  of  revolutions  and  wars, 
they  arc,  they  exist,  they  have  the  right  to  install  themselves 
in  society,  and  they  do  install  themselves  therein;  and  most 
of  the  time,  facts  are  the  stewards  of  the  household 
and  fouriers1  who  do  nothing  but  prepare  lodgings  for 
principles. 

This,  then,  is  what  appears  to  philosophical  politicians : — 

At  the  same  time  that  weary  men  demand  repose,  accom- 
plished facts  demand  guarantees.  Guarantees  are  the  same 
to  facts  that  repose  is  to  men. 

This  is  what  England  demanded  of  the  Stuarts  after  the 
Protector;  this  is  what  France  demanded  of  the  Bourbons 
after  the  Empire. 

These  guarantees  are  a  necessity  of  the  times.  They  must 
be  accorded.  Princes  "grant"  them,  but  in  reality,  it  is  the 
force  of  things  which  gives  them.  A  profound  truth,  and  one 

•In  olden  times,  fouriers  were  the  officials  who  preceded  the  Court 
and  allotted  the  lodgings. 


A  FEW  PAGES  OF  HISTORY  3 

useful  to  know,  which  the  Stuarts  did  not  suspect  in  1662, 
and  which  the  Bourbons  did  not  even  obtain  a  glimpse  of  in 
1814. 

The  predestined  family,  which  returned  to  France  when 
Napoleon  fell,  had  the  fatal  simplicity  to  believe  that  it  was 
itself  which  bestowed,  and  that  what  it  had  bestowed  it  could 
take  back  again ;  that  the  House  of  Bourbon  possessed  the 
right  divine,  that  France  possessed  nothing,  and  that  the 
political  right  conceded  in  the  charter  of  Louis  XVIII.  was 
merely  a  branch  of  the  right  divine,  was  detached  by  the 
House  of  Bourbon  and  graciously  given  to  the  people  until 
such  day  as  it  should  please  the  King  to  reassume  it.  Still, 
the  House  of  Bourbon  should  have  felt,  from  the  displeasure 
created  by  the  gift,  that  it  did  not  come  from  it. 

This  house  was  churlish  to  the  nineteenth  century.  It  put 
on  an  ill-tempered  look  at  every  development  of  the  nation. 
To  make  use  of  a  trivial  word,  that  is  to  say,  of  a  popular  and 
a  true  word,  it  looked  glum.  The  people  saw  this. 

It  thought  it  possessed  strength  because  the  Empire  had 
been  carried  away  before  it  like  a  theatrical  stage-setting.  It 
did  not  perceive  that  it  had,  itself,  been  brought  in  in  the 
same  fashion.  It  did  not  perceive  that  it  also  lay  in  that  hand 
which  had  removed  Napoleon. 

It  thought  that  it  had  roots,  because  it  was  the  past.  It  was 
mistaken ;  it  formed  a  part  of  the  past,  but  the  whole  past  was 
France.  The  roots  of  French  society  were  not  fixed  in  the 
Bourbons,  but  in  the  nations.  These  obscure  and  lively  roots 
constituted,  not  the  right  of  a  family,  but  the  history  of  a 
people.  They  were  everywhere,  except  under  the  throne. 

The  House  of  Bourbon  was  to  France  the  illustrious  and 
bleeding  knot  in  her  history,  but  was  no  longer  the  principal 
element  of  her  destiny,  and  the  necessary  base  of  her  politics. 
She  could  get  along  without  the  Bourbons ;  she  had  done  with- 
out them  for  two  and  twenty  years;  there  had  been  a  break 
of  continuity;  they  did  not  suspect  the  fact.  And  how  should 
they  have  suspected  it,  they  who  fancied  that  Louis  XVII. 
reigned  on  the  9th  of  Thermidor,  and  that  Louis  XVIII. 


4  8AIXTDENI8 

was  reigning  at  the  battle  of  Marengo?  Never,  since  the 
origin  of  history,  had  princes  been  so  blind  in  the  presence 
of  facts  and  the  portion  of  divine  authority  which  facts  con- 
tain and  promulgate.  Never  had  that  pretension  here  below 
which  is  called  the  right  of  kings  denied  to  such  a  point  the 
right  from  on  high. 

A  capital  error  which  led  this  family  to  lay  its  hand  once 
more  on  the  guarantees  "granted"  in  1814,  on  the  concessions, 
as  it  termed  them.  Sad.  A  sad  thing !  What  it  termed  its 
concessions  were  our  conquests ;  what  it  termed  our  encroach- 
ments were  our  rights. 

When  the  hour  seemed  to  it  to  have  come,  the  Restoration, 
supposing  itself  victorious  over  Bonaparte  and  well-rooted  in 
the  country,  that  is  to  say,  believing  itself  to  be  strong  and 
deep,  abruptly  decided  on  its  plan  of  action,  and  risked  its 
stroke.  One  morning  it  drew  itself  up  before  the  face  of 
France,  and,  elevating  its  voice,  it  contested  the  collective  title 
and  the  individual  right  of  the  nation  to  sovereignty,  of  the 
citizen  to  liberty.  In  other  words,  it  denied  to  the  nation  that 
which  made  it  a  nation,  and  to  the  citizen  that  which  made 
him  a  citizen. 

This  is  the  foundation  of  those  famous  acts  which  are  called 
the  ordinances  of  July.  The  Restoration  fell. 

It  fell  justly.  But,  we  admit,  it  had  not  been  absolutely 
hostile  to  all  forms  of  progress.  Great  things  had  been  accom- 
plished, with  it  alongside. 

Under  the  Restoration,  the  nation  had  grown  accustomed  to 
calm  discussion,  which  had  been  lacking  under  the  Republic, 
and  to  grandeur  in  peace,  which  had  been  wanting  under  the 
Empire.  France  free  and  strong  had  offered  an  encouraging 
spectacle  to  the  other  peoples  of  Europe.  The  Revolution  had 
had  the  word  under  Robespierre ;  the  cannon  had  had  the  word 
under  Bonaparte;  it  was  under  Louis  XVIII.  and  Charles  X. 
that  it  was  the  turn  of  intelligence  to  have  the  word.  The 
wind  ceased,  the  torch  was  lighted  once  more.  On  the  lofty 
heights,  the  pure  light  of  mind  could  be  seen  flickering.  A 
magnificent,  useful,  and  charming  spectacle.  For  a  space  of 


A  FEW  PAGES  OF  HISTORY  5 

fifteen  years,  those  great  principles  which  arc  so  old  for  the 
thinker,  so  new  for  the  statesman,  could  be  seen  at  work  in 
perfect  peace,  on  the  public  square;  equality  before  the  law, 
liberty  of  conscience,  liberty  of  speech,  liberty  of  the  press, 
the  accessibility  of  all  aptitudes  to  all  functions.  Thus  it 
proceeded  until  1830.  The  Bourbons  were  an  instrument  of 
civilization  which  broke  in  the  hands  of  Providence. 

The  fall  of  the  Bourbons  was  full  of  grandeur,  not  on  their 
side,  but  on  the  side  of  the  nation.  They  quitted  the  throne 
with  gravity,  but  without  authority;  their  descent  into  the 
night  was  not  one  of  those  solemn  disappearances  which  leave 
a  sombre  emotion  in  history ;  it  was  neither  the  spectral  calm 
of  Charles  I.,  nor  the  eagle  scream  of  Xapoleon.  They  de- 
parted, that  is  all.  They  laid  down  the  crown,  and  retained 
no  aureole.  They  were  worthy,  but  they  were  not  august. 
They  lacked,  in  a  certain  measure,  the  majesty  of  their  mis- 
fortune. Charles  X.  during  the  voyage  from  Cherbourg, 
causing  a  round  table  to  be  cut  over  into  a  square  table, 
appeared  to  be  more  anxious  about  imperilled  etiquette  than 
about  the  crumbling  monarchy.  This  diminution  saddened 
devoted  men  who  loved  their  persons,  and  serious  men  who 
honored  their  race.  The  populace  was  admirable.  The 
nation,  attacked  one  morning  with  weapons,  by  a  sort  of 
royal  insurrection,  felt  itself  in  the  possession  of  so  much 
force  that  it  did  not  go  into  a  rage.  It  defended  itself, 
restrained  itself,  restored  things  to  their  places,  the  govern- 
ment to  law,  the  Bourbons  to  exile,  alas!  and  then  halted! 
It  took  the  old  king  Charles  X.  from  beneath  that  dais  which 
had  sheltered  Louis  XIV.  and  set  him  gently  on  the  ground. 
It  touched  the  royal  personages  only  with  sadness  and  pre- 
caution. It  was  not  one  man,  it  was  not  a  few  men,  it  was 
France,  France  entire,  France  victorious  and  intoxicated  with 
her  victory,  who  seemed  to  be  coming  to  herself,  and  who 
put  into  practice,  before  the  eyes  of  the  whole  world,  these 
grave  words  of  Guillaume  du  Vair  after  the  day  of  the 
Barricades : — 

"It  is  easv  for  those  who  are  accustomed  to  skim  the  favors 


g  BAIXT-DEXIB 

of  the  great,  and  to  spring,  like  a  bird  from  bough  to  bough, 
from  an  afflicted  fortune  to  a  flourishing  one,  to  show  them- 
selves harsh  towards  their  Prince  in  his  adversity ;  but  as  for 
me,  the  fortune  of  my  Kings  and  especially  of  my  afflicted 
Kings,  will  always  be  venerable  to  me." 

The  Bourbons  carried  away  with  them  respect,  but  not 
regret.  As  we  have  just  stated,  their  misfortune  was  greater 
than  they  were.  They  faded  out  in  the  horizon. 

The  Revolution  of  July  instantly  had  friends  and  enemies 
throughout  the  entire  world.  The  first  rushed  toward  her  with 
joy  and  enthusiasm,  the  others  turned  away,  each  according 
to  his  nature.  At  the  first  blush,  the  princes  of  Europe,  the 
owls  of  this  dawn,  shut  their  eyes,  wounded  and  stupefied, 
and  only  opened  them  to  threaten.  A  fright  which  can  be 
comprehended,  a  wrath  which  can  be  pardoned.  This  strange 
revolution  had  hardly  produced  a  shock ;  it  had  not  even  paid 
to  vanquished  royalty  the  honor  of  treating  it  as  an  enemy, 
and  of  shedding  its  blood.  In  the  eyes  of  despotic  govern- 
ments, who  are  always  interested  in  having  liberty  calumniate 
itself,  the  Revolution  of  July  committed  the  fault  of  being 
formidable  and  of  remaining  gentle.  Nothing,  however,  was 
attempted  or  plotted  against  it.  The  most  discontented,  the 
most  irritated,  the  most  trembling,  saluted  it ;  whatever  our 
egotism  and  our  rancor  may  be.  a  mysterious  respect  springs 
from  events  in  which  we  are  sensible  of  the  collaboration  of 
gome  one  who  is  working  above  man. 

The  Revolution  of  July  is  the  triumph  of  right  overthrow- 
ing the  fact.  A  thing  which  is  full  of  splendor. 

Right  overthrowing  the  fact.  Hence  the  brilliancy  of  the 
Revolution  of  1830,  hence,  also,  its  mildness.  Right  trium- 
phant has  no  need  of  being  violent. 

Right  is  the  just  and  the  true. 

The  property  of  right  is  to  remain  eternally  beautiful  and 
pure.  The  fact,  even  when  most  necessary  to  all  appearances, 
even  when  most  thoroughly  accepted  by  contemporaries,  if  it 
exist  only  as  a  fact,  and  if  it  contain  only  too  little  of  right,  or 
none  at  all,  is  infallibly  destined  to  become,  in  the  course  of 


A  FEW  PAGE?  OF  HISTORY  Y 

time,  deformed,  impure,  perhaps,  even  monstrous.  If  one 
desires  to  learn  at  one  blow,  to  what  degree  of  hidcousness  the 
fact  can  attain,  viewed  at  the  distance  of  centuries,  let  him 
look  at  Machiavelli.  Machiavelli  is  not  an  evil  genius,  nor  a 
demon,  nor  a  miserable  and  cowardly  writer;  he  is  nothing 
but  the  fact.  And  he  is  not  only  the  Italian  fact;  he  is  the 
European  fact,  the  fact  of  the  sixteenth  century.  He  seems 
hideous,  and  so  he  is,  in  the  presence  of  the  moral  idea  of  the 
nineteenth. 

This  conflict  of  right  and  fact  has  been  going  on  ever  since 
the  origin  of  society.  To  terminate  this  duel,  to  amalgamate 
the  pure  idea  with  the  humane  reality,  to  cause  right  to  pene- 
trate pacifically  into  the  fact  and  the  fact  into  right,  that  is 
the  task  of  sages. 


CHAPTER    II 

BADLY  SEWED 

BUT  the  task  of  sages  is  one  thing,  the  task  of  clever  men 
is  another.  The  Revolution  of  1830  came  to  a  sudden  halt. 

As  soon  as  a  revolution  has  made  the  coast,  the  skilful  make 
haste  to  prepare  the  shipwreck. 

The  skilful  in  our  century  have  conferred  on  themselves  the 
title  of  Statesmen;  so  that  this  word,  statesmen,  has  ended 
by  becoming  somewhat  of  a  slang  word.  It  must  be  borne  in 
mind,  in  fact,  that  wherever  there  is  nothing  but  skill,  there 
is  necessarily  pettiness.  To  say  "the  skilful"  amounts  to 
Baying  "the  mediocre." 

In  the  same  way,  to  say  "statesmen"  is  sometimes  equiv- 
alent to  saying  "traitors."  If,  then,  we  are  to  believe  the 
skilful,  revolutions  like  the  Revolution  of  July  aro  severed 
arteries;  a  prompt  ligature  is  indispensable.  The  right,  too 
grandly  proclaimed,  is  shaken.  Also,  right  once  firmly  fixed, 
the  state  must  be  strengthened.  Liberty  once  assured,  atten- 
tion must  be  directed  to  power. 


g  SAINT-DEXIS 

Here  the  sages  are  not,  as  yet,  separated  from  the  skilful, 
but  they  begin  to  be  distrustful.  Power,  very  good.  But,  in 
the  first  place,  what  is  power?  In  the  second,  whence  comes 
it  ?  The  skilful  do  not  seem  to  hear  the  murmured  objection, 
and  they  continue  their  manoeuvres. 

According  to  the  politicians,  who  are  ingenious  in  putting 
the  mask  of  necessity  on  profitable  fictions,  the  first  require- 
ment of  a  people  after  a  revolution,  when  this  people  forms 
part  of  a  monarchical  continent,  is  to  procure  for  itself  a 
dynasty.  In  this  way,  say  they,  peace,  that  is  to  say,  time  to 
dress  our  wounds,  and  to  repair  the  house,  can  be  had  after  a 
revolution.  The  dynasty  conceals  the  scaffolding  and  covers 
the  ambulance.  Now,  it  is  not  always  easy  to  procure  a 
dynasty. 

If  it  is  absolutely  necessary,  the  first  man  of  genius  or  even 
the  first  man  of  fortune  who  comes  to  hand  suffices  for  the 
manufacturing  of  a  king.  You  have,  in  the  first  case,  Napo- 
leon; in  the  second,  Iturbide. 

But  the  first  family  that  comes  to  hand  does  not  suffice  to 
make  a  dynasty.  There  is  necessarily  required  a  certain  modi- 
cum of  antiquity  in  a  race,  and  the  wrinkle  of  the  centuries 
cannot  be  improvised. 

If  we  place  ourselves  at  the  point  of  view  of  the  "states- 
men," after  making  all  allowances,  of  course,  after  a  revolu- 
tion, what  are  the  qualities  of  the  king  which  result  from  it  ? 
He  may  be  and  it  is  useful  for  him  to  be  a  revolutionary; 
that  is  to  say,  a  participant  in  his  own  person  in  that  revolu- 
tion, that  he  should  have  lent  a  hand  to  it,  that  lie  should 
have  cither  compromised  or  distinguished  himself  therein, 
that  he  should  have  touched  the  axe  or  wielded  the  sword 
in  it. 

What  are  the  qualities  of  a  dynasty?  It  should  be  national; 
that  is  to  say,  revolutionary  at  a  distance,  not  through  acts 
committed,  but  by  reason  of  ideas  accepted.  It  should  be 
composed  of  past  and  be  historic ;  be  composed  of  future  and 
be  sympathetic. 

All  this  explains  why  the  early  revolutions  contented  them- 


A  FEW  PAUEU  OF  U1BTOKY  0 

selves  with  finding  a  man,  Cromwell  or  Napoleon ;  and  why 
the  second  absolutely  insisted  on  finding  a  family,  the  House 
of  Brunswick  or  the  House  of  Orleans. 

Royal  houses  resemble  tbose  Indian  fig-trees,  each  branch  of 
which,  bending  over  to  the  earth,  takes  root  and  becomes  a 
fig-tree  itself.  Each  branch  may  become  a  dynasty.  On  t he- 
sole  condition  that  it  shall  bend  down  to  the  people. 

Such  is  the  theory  of  the  skilful. 

Here,  then,  lies  the  great  art:  to  make  a  little  render  to 
success  the  sound  of  a  catastrophe  in  order  that  those  who 
profit  by  it  may  tremble  from  it  also,  to  season  with  fear  every 
step  that  is  taken,  to  augment  the  curve  of  the  transition  to 
the  point  of  retarding  progress,  to  dull  that  aurora,  to  de- 
nounce and  retrench  the  harshness  of  enthusiasm,  to  cut  all 
angles  and  nails,  to  wad  triumph,  to  muffle  up  right,  to  envelop 
the  giant-people  in  flannel,  and  to  put  it  to  bed  very  speedily, 
to  impose  a  diet  on  that  excess  of  health,  to  put  Hercules  on 
the  treatment  of  a  convalescent,  to  dilute  the  event  with  the 
expedient,  to  offer  to  spirits  thirsting  for  the  ideal  that  nectar 
thinned  out  with  a  potion,  to  take  one's  precautions  against  too 
much  success,  to  garnish  the  revolution  with  a  shade. 

1830  practised  this  theory,  already  applied  to  England 
by  1G88. 

1830  is  a  revolution  arrested  midway.  Half  of  progress, 
quasi-right.  Now,  logic  knows  not  the  "almost,"  absolutely 
as  the  sun  knows  not  the  candle. 

Who  arrests  revolutions  half-way?     The  bourgeoisie? 

Why? 

Because  the  bourgeoisie  is  interest  which  has  readied  satis- 
faction. Yesterday  it  was  appetite,  to-day  it  is  plenitude, 
to-morrow  it  will  be  satiety. 

The  phenomenon  of  1814  after  Napoleon  was  reproduced  in 
1830  after  Charles  X. 

The  attempt  has  been  made,  and  wrongly,  to  make  a  class  of 
the  bourgeoisie.  The  bourgeoisie  is  simply  the  contented  por- 
tion of  the  people.  The  bourgeois  is  the  man  who  now  has 
time  to  sit  down.  A  chair  is  not  a  caste. 


10 

But  through  a  desire  to  sit  down  too  soon,  one  may  anest 
the  very  march  of  the  human  race.  This  has  often  been  the 
fault  of  the  bourgeoisie. 

One  is  not  a  class  because  one  has  committed  a  fault.  Self- 
ishness is  not  one  of  the  divisions  of  the  social  order. 

Moreover,  we  must  be  just  to  selfishness.  The  state  to  which 
that  part  of  the  nation  which  is  called  the  bourgeoisie  aspired 
after  the  shock  of  1830  was  not  the  inertia  which  is  compli- 
cated with  indifference  and  laziness,  and  which  contains  a 
little  shame;  it  was  not  the  slumber  which  presupposes  a 
momentary  forgetfulness  accessible  to  dreams;  it  was  the 
halt. 

The  halt  is  a  word  formed  of  a  singular  double  and  almost 
contradictory  sense:  a  troop  on  the  march,  that  is  to  say, 
movement ;  a  stand,  that  is  to  say,  repose. 

The  halt  is  the  restoration  of  forces ;  it  is  repose  armed  and 
on  the  alert;  it  is  the  accomplished  fact  which  posts  sentinels 
and  holds  itself  on  its  guard. 

The  halt  presupposes  the  combat  of  yesterday  and  the  com- 
bat of  to-morrow. 

It  is  the  partition  between  1830  and  1848. 

What  we  here  call  combat  may  also  be  designated  as 
progress. 

The  bourgeoisie  then,  as  well  as  the  statesmen,  required  a 
man  who  should  express  this  word  Halt.  An  Although- 
Because.  A  composite  individuality,  signifying  revolution 
and  signifying  stability,  in  other  terms,  strengthening  the 
present  by  the  evident  compatibility  of  the  past  with  the 
future. 

This  man  was  "already  found."  His  name  was  Louis  Phi- 
lippe d'Orleans. 

The  221  made  Louis  Philippe  King.  Lafayette  undertook 
the  coronation. 

He  called  it  the  best  of  republics.  The  town-hall  of  Paris 
took  the  place  of  the  Cathedral  of  Rheims. 

This  substitution  of  a  half-throne  for  a  whole  throne  was 
"the  work  of  1830." 


A  FEW  PAGES  OF  HISTORY  H 

When  the  skilful  had  finished,  the  immense  vice  of  their 
solution  became  apparent.  All  this  had  been  accomplished 
outside  the  bounds  of  absolute  right.  Absolute  right  cried :  "I 
protest !"  then,  terrible  to  say,  it  retired  into  the  darkness. 


CHAPTER   III 

LOUIS   PHILIPPE 

REVOLUTIONS  have  a  terrible  arm  and  a  happy  hand,  they 
strike  firmly  and  choose  well.  Even  incomplete,  even  debased 
and  abused  and  reduced  to  the  state  of  a  junior  revolution  like 
the  Revolution  of  1830,  they  nearly  always  retain  sufficient 
providential  lucidity  to  prevent  them  from  falling  amiss. 
Their  eclipse  is  never  an  abdication. 

Nevertheless,  let  us  not  boast  too  loudly;  revolutions  also 
may  be  deceived,  and  grave  errors  have  been  seen. 

Let  us  return  to  1830.  1830,  in  its  deviation,  had  good  luck. 
In  the  establishment  which  entitled  itself  order  after  the  rev- 
olution had  been  cut  short,  the  King  amounted  to  more  than 
royalty.  Louis  Philippe  was  a  rare  man. 

The  son  of  a  father  to  whom  history  will  accord  certain 
attenuating  circumstances,  but  also  as  worthy  of  esteem  as  that 
father  had  been  of  blame;  possessing  all  private  virtues  and 
many  public  virtues;  careful  of  his  health,  of  his  fortune,  of 
his  person,  of  his  affairs,  knowing  the  value  of  a  minute  and 
not  always  the  value  of  a  year;  sober,  serene,  peaceable, 
patient;  a  good  man  and  a  good  prince;  sleeping  with  his 
wife,  and  having  in  his  palace  lackeys  charged  with  the  duty 
of  showing  the  conjugal  bed  to  the  bourgeois,  an  ostentation  of 
the  regular  sleeping-apartment  which  had  become  useful  after 
the  former  illegitimate  displays  of  the  elder  branch;  know- 
ing all  the  languages  of  Europe,  and,  what  is  more  rare,  all 
the  languages  of  all  interests,  and  speaking  them ;  an  admira- 
ble representative  of  the  "middle  class,"  but  outstripping  it, 
and  in  every  way  greater  than  it;  possessing  excellent  sense, 


12 

while  appreciating  the  blood  from  which  ho  had  sprung,  count- 
ing most  of  all  on  his  intrinsic  worth,  and,  on  the  question 
of  his  race,  very  particular,  declaring  himself  Orleans  and 
not  Bourbon;  thoroughly  the  first  Prince  of  the  Blood  Royal 
while  he  was  still  only  a  Serene  Highness,  but  a  frank  bour- 
geois from  the  day  he  became  king ;  diffuse  in  public,  concise  in 
private;  reputed,  but  not  proved  to  be  a  miser;  at  bottom,  one 
of  those  economists  who  are  readily  prodigal  at  their  own  fancy 
or  duty;  lettered,  but  not  very  sensitive  to  letters;  a  gentle- 
man, but  not  a  chevalier;  simple,  calm,  and  strong;  adored  by 
his  family  and  his  household;  a  fascinating  talker,  an  unde- 
ceived statesman,  inwardly  cold,  dominated  by  immediate  in- 
terest, always  governing  at  the  shortest  range,  incapable  of 
rancor  and  of  gratitude,  making  use  without  mercy  of  superi- 
ority on  mediocrity,  clever  in  getting  parliamentary  majorities 
to  put  in  the  wrong  those  mysterious  unanimities  which  mut- 
ter dully  under  thrones;  unreserved,  sometimes  imprudent  in 
his  lack  of  reserve,  but  with  marvellous  address  in  that  impru- 
dence;  fertile  in  expedients,  in  countenances,  in  masks;  mak- 
ing France  fear  Europe  and  Europe  France!  Incontes- 
tably  fond  of  his  country,  but  preferring  his  family;  assuming 
more  domination  than  authority  and  more  authority  than 
dignity,  a  disposition  which  has  this  unfortunate  property, 
t!:;it  as  it  turns  everything  to  success,  it  admits  of  ruse  and 
dor-s  not  absolutely  repudiate  baseness,  but  which  has  this 
valuable  side,  that  it  preserves  politics  from  violent  shocks,  the 
state  from  fractures,  and  society  from  catastrophes;  minute, 
correct,  vigilant,  attentive,  sagacious,  indefatigable;  contra- 
dicting himself  at  times  and  giving  himself  the  lie;  bold 
against  Austria  at  Ancona,  obstinate  against  England  in 
Spain,  bombarding  Antwerp,  and  paying  off  Pritchard  ;  sing- 
ing the  Marseillaise  with  conviction,  inaccessible  to  despond- 
ency, to  lassitude,  to  the  taste  for  the  beautiful  and  the  ideal, 
to  daring  generosity,  to  Utopia,  to  chimeras,  to  wrath,  to  van- 
ity, to  fear;  possessing  all  the  forms  of  personal  intrepidity;  a 
general  at  Valrny ;  a  soldier  at  Jemappes;  attacked  eight  times 
by  regicides  and  always  smiling;  brave  as  a  grenadier,  cou- 


A  FKW  PAG  EH  OF  HISTORY  13 

rageous  as  a  thinker;  uneasy  only  in  the  face  of  the  chances  of 
a  European  shaking  up,  and  unfitted  for  great  political  adven- 
tures; always  ready  to  risk  his  life,  never  his  work ;  disguising 
his  will  in  influence,  in  order  that  he  might  he  oheyed  as  an 
intelligence  rather  than  as  a  king;  endowed  with  observation 
and  not  with  divination;  not  very  attentive  to  minds,  but 
knowing  men,  that  is  to  say,  requiring  to  see  in  order  to  judge ; 
prompt  and  penetrating  good  sense,  practical  wisdom,  easy 
speech,  prodigious  memory;  drawing  incessantly  on  this  mem- 
ory, his  only  point  of  resemblance  with  Caesar,  Alexander,  and 
Napoleon;  knowing  deeds,  facts,  details,  dates,  proper  names, 
ignorant  of  tendencies,  passions,  the  diverse  geniuses  of  the 
crowd,  the  interior  aspirations,  the  hidden  and  obscure  upris- 
ings of  souls,  in  a  word,  all  that  can  be  designated  as  the  invisi- 
ble currents  of  consciences;  accepted  by  the  surface,  but  little 
in  accord  with  France  lower  down  ;  extricating  himself  by  dint 
of  tact;  governing  too  much  and  not  enough;  his  own  first 
minister;  excellent  at  creating  out  of  the  pettiness  of  realities 
an  obstacle  to  the  immensity  of  ideas;  mingling  a  genuine 
creative  faculty  of  civilization,  of  order  and  organization,  an 
indescribable  spirit  of  proceedings  and  chicanery,  the  founder 
and  lawyer  of  a  dynasty;  having  something  of  Charlemagne 
and  something  of  an  attorney ;  in  short,  a  lofty  and  original 
figure,  a  prince  who  understood  how  to  create  authority  in 
spite  of  the  uneasiness  of  France,  and  power  in  spite  of  the 
jealousy  of  Europe.  Louis  Philippe  will  be  classed  among  the 
eminent  men  of  his  century,  and  would  be  ranked  among  the 
most  illustrious  governors  of  history  had  he  loved  glory  but  a 
little,  and  if  he  had  had  the  sentiment  of  what  is  great  to  the 
same  degree  as  the  feeling  for  what  is  useful. 

Louis  Philippe  had  been  handsome,  and  in  his  old  age  he 
remained  graceful ;  not  always  approved  by  the  nation,  he 
always  was  so  by  the  masses;  he  pleased.  He  had  that  gift 
of  charming.  He  lacked  majesty ;  he  wore  no  crown,  although 
a  king,  and  no  white  hair,  although  an  old  man  ;  his  manners 
belonged  to  the  old  regime  and  his  habits  to  the  new;  a  mix- 
ture of  the  noble  and  the  bourgeois  which  suited  1830;  Louis 


14  8AIST-DEX18 

Philippe  was  transition  reigning;  he  had  preserved  the  ancient 
pronunciation  and  the  ancient  orthography  which  he  placed  at 
the  service  of  opinions  modern  ;  he  loved  Poland  and  Hungary, 
but  he  wrote  les  Polonois,  and  he  pronounced  Ics  Hongrais.  He 
wore  the  uniform  of  the  national  guard,  like  Charles  X.,  and 
the  ribbon  of  the  Legion  of  Honor,  like  Napoleon. 

He  went  a  little  to  chapel,  not  at  all  to  the  chase,  never  to 
the  opera.  Incorruptible  by  sacristans,  by  whippers-in,  by 
ballet-dancers;  this  made  a  part  of  his  bourgeois  popularity. 
He  had  no  heart.  He  went  out  with  his  umbrella  under  his 
arm,  and  this  umbrella  long  formed  a  part  of  his  aureole.  He 
was  a  bit  of  a  mason,  a  bit  of  a  gardener,  something  of  a  doc- 
tor ;  he  bled  a  postilion  who  had  tumbled  from  his  horse ;  Louis 
Philippe  no  more  went  about  without  his  lancet,  than  did 
Henri  IV.  without  his  poniard.  The  Royalists  jeered  at  this 
ridiculous  king,  the  first  who  had  ever  shed  blood  with  the  ob- 
ject of  healing. 

For  the  grievances  against  Louis  Philippe,  there  is  one  de- 
duction to  be  made;  there  is  that  which  accuses  royalty,  that 
which  accuses  the  reign,  that  which  accuses  the  King;  three 
columns  which  all  give  different  totals.  Democratic  right  con- 
fiscated, progress  becomes  a  matter  of  secondary  interest,  the 
protests  of  the  street  violently  repressed,  military  execution  of 
insurrections,  the  rising  passed  over  by  arms,  the  Rue  Trans- 
nonain,  the  counsels  of  war,  the  absorption  of  the  real  country 
by  the  legal  country,  on  half  shares  with  three  hundred  thou- 
sand privileged  persons, — these  are  the  deeds  of  royalty ;  Bel- 
gium refused,  Algeria  too  harshly  conquered,  and,  as  in  the 
case  of  India  by  the  English,  with  more  barbarism  than 
civilization,  the  breach  of  faith,  to  Abd-c!-Kader,  Blaye, 
Deutz  bought,  Pritchard  paid, — these.are  the  doings  of  the 
reign ;  the  policy  which  was  more  domestic  than  national  was 
the  doing  of  the  King. 

As  will  be  seen,  the  proper  deduction  having  been  made,  the 
King's  charge  is  decreased. 

This  is  his  great  fault;  he  was  modest  in  the  name  of 
France. 


A  FEW  PAGES  OF  HISTORY  15 

Whence  arises  this  fault? 

We  will  state  it. 

Louis  Philippe  was  rather  too  much  of  a  paternal  king ;  that 
incubation  of  a  family  with  the  object  of  founding  a  dynasty 
is  afraid  of  everything  and  does  not  like  to  be  disturbed  ;  hence 
excessive  timidity,  which  is  displeasing  to  the  people,  who 
have  the  14th  of  July  in  their  civil  and  Austerlitz  in  their 
military  tradition. 

Moreover,  if  we  deduct  the  public  duties  which  require  to 
be  fulfilled  first  of  all,  that  deep  tenderness  of  Louis  Philippe 
towards  his  family  was  deserved  by  the  family.  That  domestic 
group  was  worthy  of  admiration.  Virtues  there  dwelt  side  by 
side  with  talents.  One  of  Louis  Philippe's  daughters,  Marie 
d'Orleans,  placed  the  name  of  her  race  among  artists,  as 
Charles  d'Orleans  had  placed  it  among  poets.  She  made  of  her 
soul  a  marble  which  she  named  Jeanne  d'Arc.  Two  of  Louis 
Philippe's  daughters  elicited  from  Metternich  this  eulogium : 
"They  are  young  people  such  as  are  rarely  seen,  and  princes 
such  as  are  never  seen." 

This,  without  any  dissimulation,  and  also  without  any  exag- 
geration, is  the  truth  about  Louis  Philippe. 

To  be  Prince  Equality,  to  bear  in  his  own  person  the  contra- 
diction of  the  Restoration  and  the  Revolution,  to  have  that  dis- 
quieting side  of  the  revolutionary  which  becomes  reassuring  in 
governing  power,  therein  lay  the  fortune  of  Louis  Philippe  in 
1830 ;  never  was  there  a  more  complete  adaptation  of  a  man  to 
an  event;  the  one  entered  into  the  other,  and  the  incarnation 
took  place.  Louis  Philippe  is  1830  made  man.  Moreover,  he 
had  in  his  favor  that  great  recommendation  to  the  throne, 
exile.  He  had  been  proscribed,  a  wanderer,  poor.  He  had 
lived  by  his  own  Tabor.  In  Switzerland,  this  heir  to  the  richest 
princely  domains  in  France  had  sold  an  old  horse  in  order  to 
obtain  bread.  At  Reichenau,  he  gave  lessons  in  mathematics, 
while  his  sister  Adelaide  did  wool  work  and  sewed.  These 
souvenirs  connected  with  a  king  rendered  the  bourgeoisie  en- 
thusiastic. He  had,  with  his  own  hands,  demolished  the  iron 
cage  of  Mont-Saint-Michel,  built  by  Louis  XI,  and  used  by 


16  8A1XT-DEM8 

Louis  XV.  He  was  the  companion  of  Dumouriez,  he  was  the 
friend  of  Lafayette;  he  had  belonged  to  the  Jacobins'  club; 
Mirabeau  had  slapped  him  on  the  shoulder;  Danton  had  said 
to  him  :  ''Young  man  !"  At  the  age  of  four  and  twenty,  in  '03, 
being  then  M.  de  Chartres,  he  had  witnessed,  from  the  depth  of 
a  box,  the  trial  of  Louis  XVI.,  so  well  named  that  poor  tyrant. 
The  blind  clairvoyance  of  the  Revolution,  breaking  royalty  in 
the  King  and  the  King  with  royalty,  did  so  almost  without 
noticing  the  man  in  the  fierce  crushing  of  the  idea,  the  vast 
storm  of  the  Assembly-Tribunal,  the  public  wrath  interrogat- 
ing, Capet  not  knowing  what  to  reply,  the  alarming,  stupefied 
vacillation  by  that  royal  head  beneath  that  sombre  breath,  th;1 
relative  innocence  of  all  in  that  catastrophe,  of  those  who  con- 
demned as  well  as  of  the  man  condemned, — he  had  looked  on 
those  things,  he  had  contemplated  that  giddiness;  he  had  seen 
the  centuries  appear  before  the  bar  of  the  Assembly-Conven- 
tion ;  he  had  beheld,  behind  Louis  XVI.,  that  unfortunate 
passer-by  who  was  made  responsible,  the  terrible  culprit,  the 
monarchy,  rise  through  the  shadows;  and  there  had  lingered 
in  his  soul  the  respectful  fear  of  these  immense  justices  of  the 
populace,  which  are  almost  as  impersonal  as  the  justice  of  God. 

The  trace  left  in  him  by  the  Revolution  was  prodigious.  Its 
memory  was  like  a  living  imprint  of  those  great  years,  minute 
by  minute.  One  day,  in  the  presence  of  a  witness  whom  we  a:v 
not  permitted  to  doubt,  he  rectified  from  memory  the  whole  o" 
the  letter  A  in  the  alphabetical  list  of  the  Constituent  As- 
sembly. 

Louis  Philippe  was  a  king  of  the  broad  daylight.  While  he 
reigned  the  press  was  free,  the  tribune  was  free,  conscience 
and  speech  were  free.  The  laws  of  September  are  open  to 
sight.  Although  fully  aware  of  the  gnawing  power  of  light  on 
privileges,  he  left  his  throne  exposed  to  the  light.  History  will 
do  justice  to  him  for  this  loyalty. 

Louis  Philippe,  like  all  historical  men  who  have  passed  from 
the  scene,  is  to-day  put  on  bis  trial  by  the  human  conscience. 
His  case  is,  as  yet,  only  in  the  lower  court. 

The  hour  when  history  speaks  with  its  free  and  venerable 


A  FEW  PAGES  OF  HISTORY  17 

accent,  h?,s  not  yet  sounded  for  him ;  the  moment  has  not  come 
to  pronounce  a  definite  judgment  on  this  king;  the  austere  and 
illustrious  historian  Louis  Blanc  has  himself  recently  softened 
his  first  verdict;  Louis  Philippe  was  elected  by  those  two 
almost*  which  are  called  the  221  and  1830,  that  is  to  say, 
by  a  half-Parliament,  and  a  half-revolution;  and  in  any  case, 
from  the  superior  point  of  view  where  philosophy  must  place 
itself,  we  cannot  judge  him  here,  as  the  reader  has  seen  above, 
except  with  certain  reservations  in  the  name  of  the  absolute 
democratic  principle;  in  the  eyes  of  the  absolute,  outside  these 
two  rights,  the  right  of  man  in  the  first  place,  the  right  of  the 
people  in  the  second,  all  is  usurpation;  but  what  we  can  say, 
even  at  the  present  day,  that  after  making  these  reserves  is, 
that  to  sum  up  the  whole,  and  in  whatever  manner  he  is  con- 
sidered, Louis  Philippe,  taken  in  himself,  and  from  the  point 
of  view  of  human  goodness,  will  remain,  to  use  the  antique 
language  of  ancient  history,  one  of  the  best  princes  who  ever 
sat  on  a  throne. 

What  is  there  against  him  ?  That  throne.  Take  away  Louis 
Philippe  the  king,  there  remains  the  man.  And  the  man  is 
good,  lie  is  good  at  times  even  to  the  point  of  being  admira- 
ble. Often,  in  the  midst  of  his  gravest  souvenirs,  after  a  day 
of  conflict  with  the  whole  diplomacy  of  the  continent,  he  re- 
turned at  night  to  his  apartments,  and  there,  exhausted  with 
fatigue,  overwhelmed  with  sleep,  what  did  he  do?  He  took  a 
death  sentence  and  passed  the  night  in  revising  a  criminal 
suit,  considering  it  something  to  hold  his  own  against  Europe, 
but  that  it  was  a  still  greater  matter  to  rescue  a  man  from  the 
executioner.  lie  obstinately  maintained  his  opinion  against 
his  keeper  of  the  seals  ;  he  disputed  the  ground  with  the  guillo- 
tine foot  by  foot  against  the  crown  attorneys,  those  chatterers 
of  the  luir,  as  he  called  them.  Sometimes  the  pile  of  sentences 
covered  his  table ;  he  examined  them  all :  it  was  anguish  to  him 
to  abandon  these  miserable,  condemned  heads.  One  day,  he 
said  to  the  same  witness  to  whom  we  have  recently  referred: 
"I  won  seven  last  night.''  During  the  early  years  of  his  reign, 
the  death  penalty  was  as  good  as  abolished,  and  the  erection 


18  8AIXT-DESI8 

of  a  scaffold  was  a  violence  committed  against  the  King.  The 
Greve  having  disappeared  with  the  elder  branch,  a  bourgeois 
place  of  execution  was  instituted  under  the  name  of  the  Bar- 
riere-Saint-Jacques ;  ''practical  men"  felt  the  necessity  of  a 
quasi-legitimate  guillotine;  and  this  was  one  of  the  victories  of 
Casimir  Perier,  who  represented  the  narrow  sides  of  the  bour- 
geoisie, over  Louis  Philippe,  who  represented  its  liberal  sides. 
Louis  Philippe  annotated  Beccaria  with  his  own  hand.  After 
the  Fieschi  machine,  he  exclaimed :  "What  a  pity  that  I  was 
not  wounded  !  Then  I  might  have  pardoned !"  On  another 
occasion,  alluding  to  the  resistance  offered  by  his  ministry,  he 
wrote  in  connection  with  a  political  criminal,  who  is  one  of  the 
most  generous  figures  of  our  day:  "His  pardon  is  granted;  it 
only  remains  for  me  to  obtain  it."  Louis  Philippe  was  as  gen- 
tle as  Louis  IX.  and  as  kindly  as  Henri  IV. 

Now,  to  our  mind,  in  history,  where  kindness  is  the  rarest 
of  pearls,  the  man  who  is  kindly  almost  takes  precedence  of  the 
man  who  is  great. 

Louis  Philippe  having  been  severely  judged  by  some, 
harshly,  perhaps,  by  others,  it  is  quite  natural  that  a  man, 
himself  a  phantom  at  the  present  day,  who  knew  that  king, 
should  come  and  testify  in  his  favor  before  history;  this  depo- 
sition, whatever  else  it  may  be,  is  evidently  and  above  all 
things,  entirely  disinterested;  an  epitaph  penned  by  a  dead 
man  is  sincere;  one  shade  may  console  another  shade;  the 
sharing  of  the  same  shadows  confers  the  right  to  praise  it ; 
it  is  not  greatly  to  be  feared  that  it  will  ever  be  said  of  two 
tombs  in  exile:  "This  one  flattered  the  other." 


CHAPTER  IV 

CRACKS    BEXKATH   THE   FOUNDATION 

AT  the  moment  when  the  drama  which  we  are  narrating  is 
on  the  point  of  penetrating  into  the  depths  of  one  of  the  tragic 
clouds  which  envelop  the  beginning  of  Louis  Philippe's  reign, 
it  was  necessary  that  there  should  be  no  equivoque,  and  it 


A  FEW  PAGES  OF  HISTORY  19 

became  requisite  that  this  book  should  offer  some  explanation 
with  regard  to  this  king. 

Louis  Philippe  had  entered  into  possession  of  his  royal 
authority  without  violence,  without  any  direct  action  on  his 
part,  by  virtue  of  a  revolutionary  change,  evidently  quite 
distinct  from  the  real  aim  of  the  Revolution,  but  in  which 
he,  the  Due  d'Orleans,  exercised  no  personal  initiative.  He 
had  been  born  a  Prince,  and  he  believed  himself  to  have  been 
elected  King.  He  had  not  served  this  mandate  on  himself; 
he  had  not  taken  it ;  it  had  been  offered  to  him,  and  he  had 
accepted  it;  convinced,  wrongly,  to  be  sure,  but  convinced 
nevertheless,  that  the  offer  was  in  accordance  with  right  and 
that  the  acceptance  of  it  was  in  accordance  with  duty.  Hence 
his  possession  was  in  good  faith.  Now,  we  say  it  in  good 
conscience,  Louis  Philippe  being  in  possession  in  perfect  good 
faith,  and  the  democracy  being  in  good  faith  in  its  attack, 
the  amount  of  terror  discharged  by  the  social  conflicts  weighs 
neither  on  the  King  nor  on  the  democracy.  A  clash  of  prin- 
ciples resembles  a  clash  of  elements.  The  ocean  defends  the 
water,  the  hurricane  defends  the  air,  the  King  defends  Roy- 
alty, the  democracy  defends  the  people ;  the  relative,  which 
is  the  monarchy,  resists  the  absolute,  which  is  the  republic; 
society  bleeds  in  this  conflict,  but  that  which  constitutes  its 
suffering  to-day  will  constitute  its  safety  later  on ;  and,  in 
any  case,  those  who  combat  are  not  to  be  blamed;  one  of  the 
two  parties  is  evidently  mistaken;  the  right  is  not,  like  the 
Colossus  of  Rhodes,  on  two  shores  at  once,  with  one  foot  on 
the  republic,  and  one  in  Royalty;  it  is  indivisible,  and  all 
on  one  side;  but  those  who  are  in  error  are  so  sincerely;  a 
blind  man  is  no  more  a  criminal  than  a  Vendean  is  a 
ruffian.  Let  us,  then,  impute  to  the  fatality  of  things  alone 
these  formidable  collisions.  Whatever  the  nature  of  these 
tempests  may  be,  human  irresponsibility  is  mingled  with 
them. 

Let  us  complete  this  exposition. 

The  government  of  1840  led  a  hard  life  immediately.  Born 
yesterday,  it  was  obliged  to  fight  to-day. 


20  8A1XT-DEXI8 

Hardly  installed,  it  was  already  everywhere  conscious  of 
vague  movements  of  traction  on  the  apparatus  of  July  so 
recently  laid,  and  so  lacking  in  solidity. 

Resistance  was  born  on  the  morrow;  perhaps  even,  it  was 
born  on  the  preceding  evening.  From  month  to  month  the 
hostility  increased,  and  from  being  concealed  it  became 
patent. 

The  Revolution  of  July,  which  gained  but  little  accepUm 
outside  of  France  by  kings,  had  been  diversely  interpreted  in 
France,  as  we  have  said. 

God  delivers  over  to  men  his  visible  will  in  events,  an 
obscure  text  written  in  a  mysterious  tongue.  Men  immedi- 
ately make  translations  of  it ;  translations  hasty,  incorrect, 
full  of  errors,  of  gaps,  and  of  nonsense.  Very  few  minds 
comprehend  the  divine  language.  The  most  sagacious,  the 
calmest,  the  most  profound,  decipher  slowly,  and  when  they 
arrive  with  their  text,  the  task  has  long  been  completed; 
there  are  already  twenty  translations  on  the  public  place. 
From  each  remaining  springs  a  party,  and  from  each  mis- 
interpretation a  faction:  and  each  party  thinks  that  it  alone 
has  the  true  text,  and  each  faction  thinks  that  it  possesses 
the  light. 

Power  itself  is  often  a  faction. 

There  are,  in  revolutions,  swimmers  who  go  against  the 
current ;  they  are  the  old  parties. 

For  the  old  parties  who  clung  to  heredity  by  the  grace  of 
God,  think  that  revolutions,  having  sprung  from  the  right  to 
revolt,  one  has  the  right  to  revolt  against  them.  Error.  For 
in  these  revolutions,  the  one  who  revolts  is  not  the  people; 
it  is  the  king.  Revolution  is  precisely  the  contrary  of  revolt. 
Kvery  revolution,  being  a  normal  outcome,  contains  within 
itself  its  legitimacy,  which  false  revolutionists  sometimes  dis- 
honor, but  which  remains  even  when  soiled,  which  survives 
even  when  stained  with  blood. 

Revolutions  spring  not  from  an  accident,  but  from  necessity. 
A  revolution  is  a  return  from  the  fictitious  to  the  real.  It  is 
because  it  must  be  that  it  is. 


A  FEW  PAGER  OF  HISTORY  21 

None  the  less  did  the  old  legitimist  parties  assail  the  Revo- 
lution of  1830  with  all  the  vehemence  which  arises  from 
false  reasoning.  Errors  make  excellent  projectiles.  They 
strike  it  cleverly  in  its  vulnerable  spot,  in  default  of  a  cuirass, 
in  its  lack  of  logic;  they  attacked  this  revolution  in  its  royalty. 
They  shouted  to  it:  "Revolution,  why  this  king?"  Factions 
are  blind  men  who  aim  correctly. 

This  cry  was  uttered  equally  by  the  republicans.  But  com- 
ing from  them,  this  cry  was  logical.  What  was  blindness  in 
the  legitimists  was  clearness  of  vision  in  the  democrats.  1830 
had  bankrupted  the  people.  The  enraged  democracy  re- 
proached it  with  this. 

Between  the  attack  of  the  past  and  the  attack  of  the  future, 
the  establishment  of  July  struggled.  It  represented  the 
minute  at  loggerheads  on  the  one  hand  with  the  monarchical 
centuries,  on  the  other  hand  with  eternal  right. 

In  addition,  and  beside  all  this,  as  it  was  no  longer  revolu- 
tion and  had  become  a  monarchy,  1830  was  obliged  to  take 
precedence  of  all  Europe.  To  keep  the  peace,  was  an  increase 
of  complication.  A  harmony  established  contrary  to  sense  is 
often  more  onerous  than  a  war.  From  this  secret  conflict, 
always  muzzled,  but  always  growling,  was  born  armed  peace, 
that  ruinous  expedient  of  civilization  which  in  the  harness  of 
the  European  cabinets  is  suspicious  in  itself.  The  Royalty  of 
July  reared  up,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  it  caught  it  in  the 
harness  of  European  cabinets.  Metternich  would  gladly  have 
put  it  in  kicking-straps.  Pushed  on  in  France  by  progress,  it 
pushed  on  the  monarchies,  those  loiterers  in  Europe.  After 
having  been  towed,  it  undertook  to  tow. 

Meanwhile,  within  her,  pauperism,  the  proletariat,  salarv, 
education,  penal  servitude,  prostitution,  the  fate  of  the 
woman,  wealth,  misery,  production,  consumption,  division, 
exchange,  coin,  credit,  the  rights  of  capital,  the  rights  of 
labor, — all  these  questions  were  multiplied  above  society,  a 
terrible  slope. 

Outside  of  political  parties  properly  so  called,  another  move- 
ment became  manifest.  Philosophical  fermentation  replied  to 


22  BAIXT-DEXIB 

democratic  fermentation.  The  elect  felt  troubled  as  well  as 
the  masses;  in  another  manner,  but  quite  as  much. 

Thinkers  meditated,  while  the  soil,  that  is  to  say.  the  people, 
traversed  by  revolutionary  currents,  trembled  under  them  with 
indescribably  vague  epileptic  shocks.  These  dreamers,  some 
isolated,  others  united  in  families  and  almost  in  communion, 
turned  over  social  questions  in  a  pacific  but  profound  manner; 
impassive  miners,  who  tranquilly  pushed  their  galleries 
into  the  depths  of  a  volcano,  hardly  disturbed  by  the 
dull  commotion  and  the  furnaces  of  which  they  caught 
glimpses. 

This  tranquillity  was  not  the  least  beautiful  spectacle  of 
this  agitated  epoch. 

These  men  left  to  political  parties  the  question  of  rights, 
they  occupied  themselves  with  the  question  of  happiness. 

The  well-being  of  man,  that  was  what  they  wanted  to  ex- 
tract from  society. 

They  raised  material  questions,  questions  of  agriculture,  of 
industry,  of  commerce,  almost  to  the  dignity  of  a  religion. 
In  civilization,  such  as  it  has  formed  itself,  a  little  by  the 
command  of  God,  a  great  deal  by  the  agency  of  man,  interests 
combine,  unite,  and  amalgamate  in  a  manner  to  form  a 
veritable  hard  rock,  in  accordance  with  a  dynamic  law, 
patiently  studied  by  economists,  those  geologists  of  politics. 
These  men  who  grouped  themselves  under  different  appella- 
tions, but  who  may  all  be  designated  by  the  generic  title  of 
socialists,  endeavored  to  pierce  that  rock  and  to  cause  it  to 
spout  forth  the  living  waters  of  human  felicity. 

From  the  question  of  the  scaffold  to  the  question  of  war, 
their  works  embraced  everything.  To  the  rights  of  man,  as 
proclaimed  by  the  French  Revolution,  they  added  the  rights 
of  woman  and  the  rights  of  the  child. 

The  reader  will  not  be  surprised  if,  for  various  reasons,  we 
do  not  here  treat  in  a  thorough  manner,  from  the  theoretical 
point  of  view,  the  questions  raised  by  socialism.  We  confine 
ourselves  to  indicating  them. 

All  the  problems  that  the  socialists  proposed  to  themselves, 


A  FEW  PAGES  OF  HISTORY  23 

cosmogonic  visions,  revery  and  mysticism  being  cast  aside,  can 
be  reduced  to  two  principal  problems. 

First  problem:   To  produce  wealth. 

Second  problem:   To  share  it. 

The  first  problem  contains  the  question  of  work. 

The  second  contains  the  question  of  salary. 

In  the  first  problem  the  employment  of  forces  is  in 
question. 

In  the  second,  the  distribution  of  enjoyment. 

From  the  proper  employment  of  forces  results  public  power. 

From  a  good  distribution  of  enjoyments  results  individual 
happiness. 

By  a  good  distribution,  not  an  equal  but  an  equitable  dis- 
tribution must  be  understood. 

From  these  two  things  combined,  the  public  power  without, 
individual  happiness  within,  results  social  prosperity. 

Social  prosperity  means  the  man  happy,  the  citizen  free,  the 
nation  great. 

England  solves  the  first  of  these  two  problems.  She  creates 
wealth  admirably,  she  divides  it  badly.  This  solution  which 
is  complete  on  one  side  only  leads  her  fatally  to  two  extremes : 
monstrous  opulence,  monstrous  wretchedness.  All  enjoyments 
for  some,  all  privations  for  the  rest,  that  is  to  say,  for  the 
people;  privilege,  exception,  monopoly,  feudalism,  born  from 
toil  itself.  A  false  and  dangerous  situation,  which  sates  pub- 
lic power  or  private  misery,  which  sets  the  roots  of  the  State 
in  the  sufferings  of  the  individual.  A  badly  constituted 
grandeur  in  which  are  combined  all  the  material  elements 
and  into  which  no  moral  element  enters. 

Communism  and  agrarian  law  think  that  they  solve  the 
second  problem.  They  are  mistaken.  Their  division  kills 
production.  Equal  partition  abolishes  emulation;  and  con- 
sequently labor.  It  is  a  partition  made  by  the  butcher,  which 
kills  that  which  it  divides.  It  is  therefore  impossible  to  pause 
over  these  pretended  solutions.  Slaying  wealth  is  not  the 
same  thing  as  dividing  it. 

The  two  problems  require  to  be  solved  together,  to  be  well 


04  8AIXT-DEXI8 

solved.  The  two  problems  must  be  combined  and  made  but 
one. 

Solve  only  the  first  of  the  two  problems;  you  will  be  Venice, 
you  will  be  England.  You  will  have,  like  Venice,  an  artificial 
power,  or,  like  England,  a  material  power;  you  will  be  the 
wicked  rich  man.  You  will  die  by  an  act  of  violence,  as 
Venice  died,  or  by  bankruptcy,  as  England  will  fall.  And 
the  world  will  allow  to  die  and  fall  all  that  is  merely  selfish- 
ness, all  that  does  not  represent  for  the  human  race  either  a 
virtue  or  an  idea. 

It  is  well  understood  here,  that  by  the  words  Venice,  Eng- 
land, we  designate  not  the  peoples,  but  social  structures;  the 
oligarchies  superposed  on  nations,  and  not  the  nations  them- 
selves. The  nations  always  have  our  respect  and  our  sym- 
pathy. Venice,  as  a  people,  will  live  again;  England,  the 
aristocracy,  will  fall,  but  England,  the  nation,  is  immortal. 
That  said,  we  continue. 

Solve  the  two  problems,  encourage  the  wealthy,  and  protect 
the  poor,  suppress  misery,  put  an  end  to  the  unjust  farming 
out  of  the  feeble  by  the  strong,  put  a  bridle  on  the  iniquitous 
jealousy  of  the  man  who  is  making  his  way  against  the  man 
who  has  reached  the  goal,  adjust,  mathematically  and  frater- 
nally, salary  to  labor,  mingle  gratuitous  and  compulsory  edu- 
cation with  the  growth  of  childhood,  and  make  of  science  the 
base  of  manliness,  develop  minds  while  keeping  arms  busy,  be 
at  one  and  the  same  time  a  powerful  people  and  a  family  of 
happy  men,  render  property  democratic,  not  by  abolishing  it, 
but  by  making  it  universal,  so  that  every  eilixcn.  without 
exception,  may  be  a  proprietor,  an  easier  matter  than  is  gen- 
erally supposed;  in  two  words,  learn  how  to  produce  wealth 
and  how  to  distribute  it,  and  you  will  have  at  once  moral  and 
material  greatness;  and  you  will  be  worthy  to  call  yourself 
France. 

This  is  what  socialism  said  outside  and  above  a  few  sects 
which  have  gone  astray;  that  is  what  it  sought  in  facts,  that 
is  what  it  sketched  out  in  minds. 

Efforts  worthy  of  admiration!     Sacred  attempts! 


A  FEW  PA.GEK  OF  HISTORY  25 

These  doctrines,  these  theories,  these  resistances,  the  unfore- 
seen necessity  for  the  statesman  to  take  philosophers  into 
account,  confused  evidences  of  which  we  catch  a  glimpse,  a 
new  system  of  politics  to  he  created,  which  shall  he  in  accord 
with  the  old  world  without  too  much  disaccord  with  the  new 
revolutionary  ideal,  a  situation  in  which  it  became  necessary 
to  use  Lafayette  to  defend  Polignac,  the  intuition  of  progress 
transparent  beneath  the  revolt,  the  chambers  and  streets,  the 
competitions  to  be  brought  into  equilibrium  around  Rim,  his 
faith  in  the  Revolution,  perhaps  an  eventual  indefinable  resig- 
nation born  of  the  vague  acceptance  of  a  superior  definitive 
right,  his  desire  to  remain  of  his  race,  his  domestic  spirit,  his 
sincere  respect  for  the  people,  his  own  honesty,  preoccupied 
Louis  Philippe  almost  painfully,  and  there  were  moments 
when,  strong  and  courageous  as  he  was,  he  was  overwhelmed 
by  the  difficulties  of  being  a  king. 

He  felt  under  his  feet  a  formidable  disaggregation,  which 
was  not,  nevertheless,  a  reduction  to  dust,  France  being  more 
France  than  ever. 

Piles  of  shadows  covered  the  horizon.  A  strange  shade, 
gradually  drawing  nearer,  extended  little  by  little  over  men, 
over  things,  over  ideas ;  a  shade  which  came  from  wraths  and 
systems.  Everything  which  had  been  hastily  stifled  was  mov- 
ing and  fermenting.  At  times  the  conscience  of  the  honest 
man  resumed  its  breathing,  so  great  was  the  discomfort  of 
that  air  in  which  sophisms  were  intermingled  with  truths. 
Spirits  trembled  in  the  social  anxiety  like  leaves  at  the 
approach  of  a  storm.  The  electric  tension  was  such  that  at 
certain  instants,  the  first  comer,  a  stranger,  broiight  light. 
Then  the  twilight  obscurity  closed  in  again.  At  intervals, 
deep  and  dull  mutterings  allowed  a  judgment  to  be  formed  as 
to  the  quantity  of  thunder  contained  by  the  cloud. 

Twenty  months  had  barely  elapsed  since  the  Revolution  of 
July,  the  year  1832  had  opened  with  an  aspect  of  something 
impending  and  threatening. 

The  distress  of  the  people,  the  laborers  without  bread,  the 
last  Prince  de  Conde  engulfed  in  the  shadows,  Brussels  expel- 


2tf  SAINT-DENIS 

ling  the  Nassaus  as  Paris  did  the  Bourbons,  Belgium  offering 
herself  to  a  French  Prince  and  giving  herself  to  an  English 
Prince,  the  Russian  hatred  of  Xicolas,  behind  us  the  demons  of 
the  South,  Ferdinand  in  Spain,  Miguel  in  Portugal,  the  earth 
quaking  in  Italy,  Metternich  extending  his  hand  over  Bologna, 
Franco  treating  Austria  sharply  at  Ancona,  at  the  North  no 
one  knew  what  sinister  sound  of  the  hammer  nailing  up  Po- 
land in  her  coffin,  irritated  glances  watching  France  narrowly 
all  over  Europe,  England,  a  suspected  ally,  ready  to  give  a 
push  to  that  which  was  tottering  and  to  hurl  herself  on  that 
which  should  fall,  the  peerage  sheltering  itself  behind  Beccaria 
to  refuse  four  heads  to  the  law,  the  fleurs-de-lys  erased  from 
the  King's  carriage,  the  cross  torn  from  Notre  Dame,  Lafay- 
ette lessened,  Laffitte  ruined,  Benjamin  Constant  dead  in  indi- 
gence, Casimir  Perier  dead  in  the  exhaustion  of  his  power; 
political  and  social  malady  breaking  out  simultaneously  in  the 
two  capitals  of  the  kingdom,  the  one  in  the  city  of  thought,  the 
other  in  the  city  of  toil;  at  Paris  civil  war,  at  Lyons  servile 
war ;  in  the  two  cities,  the  same  glare  of  the  furnace ;  a  crater- 
like  crimson  on  the  brow  of  the  people;  the  South  rendered 
fanatic,  the  West  troubled,  the  Duchesse  de  Berry  in  la  Ven- 
dee, plots,  conspiracies,  risings,  cholera,  added  the  sombre  roar 
of  tumult  of  events  to  the  sombre  roar  of  ideas. 


CHAPTER   V 

PACTS   WHENCE   HISTORY   SPRINGS   AND   WHICH   HISTORY 
IGNORES 

TOWARDS  the  end  of  April,  everything  had  become  aggra- 
vated. The  fermentation  entered  the  boiling  state.  Ever  since 
1830,  petty  partial  revolts  had  been  going  on  here  and  there, 
which  were  quickly  suppressed,  but  ever  bursting  forth  afresh, 
the  sign  of  a  vast  underlying  conflagration.  Something  terri- 
ble was  in  preparation.  Glimpses  could  be  caught  of  the 
features  still  indistinct  and  imperfectly  lighted,  of  a  possible 


A   FEW  PAGES  OF  FJIKTORY  27 

revolution.  France  kept  an  eye  on  Paris;  Paris  kept  an  eye 
on  the  Faubourg  Saint-Antoine. 

The  Faubourg  Saint-Antoine,  which  was  in  a  dull  glow,  was 
beginning  its  ebullition. 

The  wine-shops  of  the  Rue  de  Charonne  were,  although  the 
union  of  the  two  epithets  seems  singular  when  applied  to  wine- 
shops, grave  and  stormy. 

The  government  was  there  purely  and  simply  called  in  ques- 
tion. There  people  publicly  discussed  the  question  of  fighting 
or  of  keeping  quiet.  There  were  back  shops  where  workingmen 
were  made  to  swear  that  they  would  hasten  into  the  street  at 
the  first  cry  of  alarm,  and  "that  they  would  fight  without 
counting  the  number  of  the  enemy."  This  engagement  once 
entered  into,  a  man  seated  in  the  corner  of  the  wine-shop  "as- 
sumed a  sonorous  tone,"  and  said,  "You  understand !  You 
have  sworn !" 

Sometimes  they  went  up  stairs,  to  a  private  room  on  the  first 
floor,  and  there  scenes  that  were  almost  masonic  were  enacted. 
They  made  the  initiated  take  oaths  to  render  service  to 
himself  as  well  as  to  the  fathers  of  families.  That  was  the 
formula. 

In  the  tap-rooms,  "subversive"  pamphlets  were  read.  They 
treated  the  government  with  contempt.,  says  a  secret  report  of 
that  time. 

Words  like  the  following  could  be  heard  there: — 

"I  don't  know  the  names  of  the  leaders.  We  folks  shall  not 
know  the  day  until  two  hours  beforehand.''  One  workman 
said :  "There  are  three  hundred  of  us,  let  each  contribute  ten 
sous,  that  will  make  one  hundred  and  fifty  francs  with  which 
to  procure  powder  and  shot." 

Another  said :  "I  don't  ask  for  six  months,  I  don't  ask  for 
even  two.  In  less  than  a  fortnight  we  shall  be  parallel  with  the 
government.  With  twenty-five  thousand  men  we  can  face 
them."  Another  said  :  "I  don't  sleep  at  night,  because  I  make 
cartridges  all  night."  From  time  to  time,  men  "of  bourgeois 
appearance,  and  in  good  coats"  came  and  "caused  embarrass- 
ment," and  with  the  air  of  "command,"  shook  hands  with  the 


28  8AIKT-DENI8 

most  important,  and  then  went  away.  They  never  stayed  more 
than  ten  minutes.  Significant  remarks  were  exchanged  in  a 
low  tone:  "The  plot  is  ripe,  the  matter  is  arranged."  "It  was 
murmured  by  all  who  were  there,"  to  borrow  the  very  expres- 
sion of  one  of  those  who  were  present.  The  exaltation  was 
such  that  one  day,  a  workingman  exclaimed,  before  the  whole 
wine-shop :  "We  have  no  arms !"  One  of  his  comrades  replied  : 
"The  soldiers  have!"  thus  parodying  without  being  aware  of 
the  fact,  Bonapnrte's  proclamation  to  the  army  in  Italy: 
"When  they  had  anything  of  a  more  secret  nature  on  hand," 
adds  one  report,  "they  did  not  communicate  it  to  each  other." 
It  is  not  easy  to  understand  what  they  could  conceal  after 
what  they  said. 

These  reunions  were  sometimes  periodical.  At  certain  ones 
of  them,  there  were  never  more  than  eight  or  ten  persons  pres- 
ent, and  they  were  always  the  same.  In  others,  any  one  entered 
who  wished,  and  the  room  was  so  full  that  they  were  forced  to 
stand.  Some  went  thither  through  enthusiasm  and  passion; 
others  because  it  was  on  their  way  to  their  work.  As  during 
the  Revolution,  there  were  patriotic  women  in  some  of  these 
wine-shops  who  embraced  new-comers. 

Other  expressive  facts  came  to  light. 

A  man  would  enter  a  shop,  drink,  and  go  his  way  with  the 
remark :  "Wine-merchant,  the  revolution  will  pay  what  is  due 
to  you." 

Revolutionary  agents  were  appointed  in  a  wine-shop  facing 
the  Rue  de  Charonne.  The  balloting  was  carried  on  in  their 
caps. 

Workingmen  met  at  the  house  of  a  fencing-master  who  gave 
lessons  in  the  Rue  de  Cotte.  There  there  was  a  trophy  of  arms 
formed  of  wooden  broadswords,  canes,  clubs,  and  foils.  One 
day,  the  buttons  were  removed  from  the  foils. 

A  workman  said :  "There  are  twenty-five  of  us,  but  they 
don't  count  on  me,  because  I  am  looked  upon  as  a  machine." 
Later  on,  that  machine  became  Quenisset. 

The  indefinite  things  which  were  brewing  gradually  acquired 
a  strange  and  indescribable  notoriety.  A  woman  sweeping  off 


A  FEW  PAGES  OF  HISTORY  29 

her  doorsteps  said  to  another  woman:  "For  a  long  time,  there 
has  been  a  strong  force  busy  making  cartridges."  In  the  open 
street,  proclamation  could  be  seen  addressed  to  the  National 
Guard  in  the  departments.  One  of  these  proclamations  was 
signed:  Burtot,  wine-merchant. 

One  day  a  man  with  his  beard  worn  like  a  collar  and  with  an 
Italian  accent  mounted  a  stone  post  at  the  door  of  a  liquor- 
seller  in  the  Marche  Lenoir,  and  read  aloud  a  singular  docu- 
ment, which  seemed  to  emanate  from  an  occult  power.  Groups 
formed  around  him,  and  applauded. 

The  passages  which  touched  the  crowd  most  deeply  were 
collected  and  noted  down.  " — Our  doctrines  are  trammelled, 
our  proclamations  torn,  our  bill-stickers  arc  spied  upon  and 
thrown  into  prison." — ''The  breakdown  which  has  recently 
taken  place  in  cottons  has  converted  to  us  many  mediums. "- 
"The  future  of  nations  is  being  worked  out  in  our  obscure 
ranks." — "Here  are  the  fixed  terms:  action  or  reaction,  revo- 
lution or  counter-revolution.  For,  at  our  epoch,  we  no  longer 
believe  either  in  inertia  or  in  immobility.  For  the  people 
against  the  people,  that  is  the  question.  There  is  no  other." — 
"On  the  day  when  we  cease  to  suit  you,  break  us,  but  up  to  that 
day,  help  us  to  march  on."  All  this  in  broad  daylight. 

Other  deeds,  more  audacious  still,  were  suspicious  in  the  eyes 
of  the  people  by  reason  of  their  very  audacity.  On  the  4th  of 
April,  1832,  a  passer-by  mounted  the  post  on  the  corner  which 
forms  the  angle  of  the  Rue  Sainte-Marguerite  and  shouted : 
"I  am  a  Babouvist !"  But  beneath  Babeuf,  the  people  scented 
Gisquet. 

Among  other  things,  this  man  said  : — 

"Down  with  property!  The  opposition  of  the  left  is  cow- 
ardly and  treacherous.  When  it  wants  to  be  on  the  right  sido. 
it  preaches  revolution,  it  is  democratic  in  order  to  escape  being 
beaten,  and  royalist  so  that  it  may  not  have  to  fight.  The  re- 
publicans are  beasts  with  feathers.  Distrust  the  republicans, 
citizens  of  the  laboring  classes." 

"Silence,  citizen  spy !"  cried  an  artisan. 

This  shout  put  an  end  to  the  discourse. 


30 

Mysterious  incidents  occurred. 

At  nightfall,  a  workingman  encountered  near  the  canal  a 
"very  well  dressed  man,"  who  said  to  him :  "Whither  are  you 
bound,  citizen?"  "Sir,"  replied  the  workingman,  "I  have 
not  the  honor  of  your  acquaintance."  "I  know  you  very  well, 
however."  And  the  man  added :  "Don't  be  alarmed,  I  am  an 
agent  of  the  committee.  You  are  suspected  of  not  being  quite 
faithful.  You  know  that  if  you  reveal  anything,  there  is  an 
eye  fixed  on  you."  Then  he  shook  hands  with  the  workingman 
and  went  away,  saying:  "We  shall  meet  again  soon." 

The  police,  who  were  on  the  alert,  collected  singular  dia- 
logues, not  only  in  the  wine-shops,  but  in  the  street. 

"Get  yourself  received  very  soon,"  said  a  weaver  to  a  cabi- 
net-maker. 

"Why?" 

"There  is  going  to  be  a  shot  to  fire." 

Two  ragged  pedestrians  exchanged  these  remarkable  replies, 
fraught  with  evident  Jacquerie : — 

"Who  governs  us  ?" 

"M.  Philippe." 

"No,  it  is  the  bourgeoisie." 

The  reader  is  mistaken  if  he  thinks  that  we  take  the  word 
Jacquerie  in  a  bad  sense.  The  Jacques  were  the  poor. 

On  another  occasion  two  men  were  heard  to  say  to  each  other 
as  they  passed  by  :  "We  have  a  good  plan  of  attack." 

Only  the  following  was  caught  of  a  private  conversation  be- 
tween four  men  who  were  crouching  in  a  ditch  of  the  circle  of 
the  Barriere  du  Trone: — 

"Everything  possible  will  be  done  to  prevent  his  walking 
about  Paris  any  more." 

Who  was  the  he  ?    Menacing  obscurity. 

"The  principal  leaders,"  as  they  said  in  the  faubourg,  held 
themselves  apart.  It  was  supposed  that  they  met  for  consulta- 
tion in  a  wine-shop  near  the  point  Saint-Eustache.  A  certain 
Aug — ,  chief  of  the  Society  aid  for  tailors,  Rue  Mondetour, 
had  the  reputation  of  serving  as  intermediary  central  between 
the  leaders  and  the  Faubourg  Saint-Antoine. 


A  FEW  PAGEH  OF  HISTORY 


31 


Nevertheless,  there  was  always  a  great  deal  of  mystery  about 
these  leaders,  and  no  certain  fact  can  invalidate  the  singular 
arrogance  of  this  reply  made  later  on  by  a  man  accused  before 
the  Court  of  Peers : — 

"Who  was  your  leader?" 

"I  knew  of  none  and  I  recognized  none." 

There  was  nothing  but  words,  transparent  but  vague ;  some- 
times idle  reports,  rumors,  hearsay.  Other  indications  cropped 
up. 

A  carpenter,  occupied  in  nailing  boards  to  a  fence  around 
the  ground  on  which  a  house  was  in  process  of  construction, 
in  the  Rue  dc  Keuilly,  found  on  that  plot  the  torn  fragment 
of  a  letter  on  which  were  still  legible  the  following  lines: — 

The  committee  must  take  measures  to  prevent  recruiting  in  the 
sections  for  the  different  societies. 

And,  as  a  postcript : — 

We  have  learned  that  there  are  guns  in  the  Rue  du  Faubourg- 
Poissonniere,  No.  5  [bis],  to  the  number  of  five  or  six  thousand,  in 
the  house  of  a  gunsmith  in  that  court.  The  section  owns  no  arms. 

What  excited  the  carpenter  and  caused  him  to  show  this 
thing  to  his  neighbors  was  the  fact,  that  a  few  paces  further 
on  he  picked  up  another  paper,  torn  like  the  first,  and  still 
more  significant,  of  which  we  reproduce  a  facsimile,  because 
of  the  historical  interest  attaching  to  these  strange  docu- 
ments : — 


Q 

c 

D 

E 

Learn  this  list  by  heart.    After  so  doing 
you   will  tear  it  up.    The  men   admitted 
trill  do   the  same  u'hen  you   hare   trans- 
mitted their  orders  to  them. 
Health  and  Fraternity, 
u  og  a'  fe                                            L. 

It  was  only  later  on  that  the  persons  who  were  in  the  secret 
of  this  find  at  the  time,  learned  the  significance  of  those  four 
capital  letters:  quinlurions,  centurions,  decurions,  eclaireurs 


32  SAINT-DEyiS 

[scouts],  and  the  sense  of  the  letters:  u  og  a'  fe,  which  was  a 
date,  and  meant  April  15th,  1832.  Under  each  capital  letter 
were  inscribed  names  followed  by  very  characteristic  notes. 
Thus:  Q.  Banncrel.  8  guns,  83  cartridges.  A  safe  man. — C. 
Boubierc.  1  pistol,  40  cartridges. — D.  Rollet.  1  foil,  1  pis- 
tol, 1  pound  of  powder. — E.  Tessier.  1  sword,  1  cartridge- 
box.  Exact. — Terreur.  8  guns.  Brave,  etc. 

Finally,  this  carpenter  found,  still  in  the  same  enclosure,  a 
third  paper  on  which  was  written  in  pencil,  but  very  legibly, 
this  sort  of  enigmatical  list : — 

Unite:  Blanchard:  Arbre-Sec.  6. 

Barra.     Soize.     Salle-au-Comte. 

Kosciusko.    Aubry  the  Butcher  T 

J.  J.  R. 

Cains  Gracchus. 

Ripht  of  revision.     Dufond.     Four. 

Fall  of  the  Girondists.     Derbac.     Maubuee. 

Washington.     Pinson.     1  pistol,  86  cartridges. 

Marseillaise. 

Sovereignty  of  the  people.   Michel.    Quincampoix.    Sword. 

Hoc- he. 

Marceau.     Plato.     Arbre-Sec. 

Warsaw.    Tilly,  crier  of  the  Populaire. 

The  honest  bourgeois  into  whose  hands  this  list  fell  knew  its 
significance.  It  appears  that  this  list  was  the  complete  nomen- 
clature of  the  sections  of  the  fourth  arondissement  of  the 
Society  of  the  Rights  of  Man,  with  the  names  and  dwellings  of 
the  chiefs  of  sections.  To-day,  when  all  these  facts  which  were 
obscure  are  nothing  more  than  history,  we  may  publish  them. 
Tt  should  be  added,  that  the  foundation  of  the  Society  of  the 
Rights  of  Man  seems  to  have  been  posterior  to  the  date 
when  this  paper  was  found.  Perhaps  this  was  only  a  rough 
draft. 

Still,  according  to  all  the  remarks  and  the  words,  accord- 
ing to  written  notes,  material  facts  begin  to  make  their 
appearance. 

In  the  Rue  Popincourt,  in  the  house  of  a  dealer  in  brio-a- 
brac,  there  were  seized  seven  sheets  of  gray  paper,  all  folded 
alike  lengthwise  and  in  four;  these  sheets  enclosed  twenty-six 


A  FEW  PAGES  OF  HISTORY  33 

squares  of  this  same  gray  paper  folded  in  the  form  of  a  car- 
tridge, and  a  card,  on  which  was  written  the  following : — 

Saltpetre 12  ounces. 

Sulphur 2  ounces. 

Charcoal 2  ounces  and  a  half. 

Water 2  ounces. 

The  report  of  the  seizure  stated  that  the  drawer  exhaled  a 
strong  smell  of  powder. 

A  mason  returning  from  his  day's  work,  left  behind  him  a 
little  package  on  a  bench  near  the  bridge  of  Austerlitz.  This 
package  was  taken  to  the  police  station.  It  was  opened,  and 
in  it  were  found  two  printed  dialogues,  signed  Lahautiere,  a 
song  entitled :  "Workmen,  band  together,"  and  a  tin  box  full 
of  cartridges. 

One  artisan  drinking  with  a  comrade  made  the  latter  feel 
him  to  see  how  warm  he  was ;  the  other  man  felt  a  pistol  under 
his  waistcoat. 

In  a  ditch  on  the  boulevard,  between  Pere-Lachaise  and  the 
Barriere  du  Trone,  at  the  most  deserted  spot,  some  children, 
while  playing,  discovered  beneath  a  mass  of  shavings  and 
refuse  bits  of  wood,  a  bag  containing  a  bullet-mould,  a  wooden 
punch  for  the  preparation  of  cartridges,  a  wooden  bowl,  in 
which  there  were  grains  of  hunting-powder,  and  a  little  cast- 
iron  pot  whoso  interior  presented  evident  traces  of  melted  lead. 

Police  agents,  making  their  way  suddenly  and  unexpectedly 
at  five  o'clock  in  the  morning,  into  the  dwelling  of  a  certain 
Pardon,  who  was  afterwards  a  member  of  the  Barricade- 
Merry  section  and  got  himself  killed  in  the  insurection  of 
April,  1834,  found  him  standing  near  his  bed,  and  holding  in 
his  hand  some  cartridges  which  he  was  in  the  act  of  pre- 
paring. 

Towards  the  hour  when  workingmen  repose,  two  men  were 
seen  to  meet  between  the  Barriere  Picpus  and  the  Barriere 
Charenton  in  a  little  lane  between  two  walls,  near  a  wine-shop, 
in  front  of  which  there  was  a  "Jeu  de  Siam."1  One  drew  a 

'A  game  of  ninepins,  in  which  one  side  of  the  hall  is  smaller  than 
the  other,  so  that  it  does  not  roll  straight,  but  de.scribes  a  curve  on 
the  ground. 


34  8AIXT-DEXI8 

pistol  from  beneath  his  blouse  and  handed  it  to  the  other.  As 
he  was  handing  it  to  him,  he  noticed  that  the  perspiration  of 
his  chest  had  made  the  powder  damp.  He  primed  the  pistol 
and  added  more  powder  to  what  was  already  in  the  pan.  Then 
the  two  men  parted. 

A  certain  Gallais,  afterwards  killed  in  the  Rue  Beaubourg 
in  the  affair  of  April,  boasted  of  having  in  his  house  seven 
hundred  cartridges  and  twenty-four  flints. 

The  government  one  day  received  a  warning  that  arms  and 
two  hundred  thousand  cartridges  had  just  been  distributed  in 
the  faubourg.  On  the  following  week  thirty  thousand  car- 
tridges were  distributed.  The  remarkable  point  about  it  was, 
that  the  police  were  not  able  to  seize  a  single  one. 

An  intercepted  letter  read:  "The  day  is  not  far  distant 
when,  within  four  hours  by  the  clock,  eighty  thousand  patriots 
will  be  under  arms." 

All  this  fermentation  was  public,  one  might  almost  say 
tranquil.  The  approaching  insurrection  was  preparing  its 
storm  calmly  in  the  face  of  the  government.  No  singularity 
was  lacking  to  this  still  subterranean  crisis,  which  was  already 
perceptible.  The  bourgeois  talked  peaceably  to  the  working- 
classes  of  what  was  in  preparation.  They  said :  "How  is  the 
rising  coming  along?"  in  the  same  tone  in  which  they  would 
have  said:  "How  is  your  wife?" 

A  furniture-dealer,  of  the  Rue  Moreau,  inquired:  "Well, 
when  are  you  going  to  make  the  attack?" 

Another  shop-keeper  said: — 

"The  attack  will  be  made  soon." 

"I  know  it.  A  month  ago,  there  were  fifteen  thousand  of 
you,  now  there  are  twenty-five  thousand."  He  offered  his  gun, 
and  a  neighbor  offered  a  small  pistol  which  he  was  willing  to 
sell  for  seven  francs. 

Moreover,  the  revolutionary  fever  was  growing.  Not  a  point 
in  Paris  nor  in  France  was  exempt  from  it.  The  artery  was 
beating  everywhere.  Like  those  membranes  which  arise  from 
certain  inflammations  and  form  in  the  human  body,  the  net- 
work of  secret  societies  began  to  spread  all  over  the  country. 


A  FEW  PAGES  OF  HISTORY  35 

From  the  associations  of  the  Friends  of  the  People,  which 
was  at  the  same  time  public  and  secret,  sprang  the  Society  of 
the  Rights  of  Man,  which  also  dated  from  one  of  the  orders 
of  the  day :  Pluviose,  Year  40  of  the  republican  era,  which  was 
destined  to  survive  even  the  mandate  of  the  Court  of  Assizes 
which  pronounced  its  dissolution,  and  which  did  not  hesitate 
to  bestow  on  its  sections  significant  names  like  the  following : — 

Pikes. 

Tocsin. 

Signal  cannon. 

Phrygian  cap. 

January  21. 

The  beggars. 

The  vagabonds. 

Forward  march. 

Robespierre. 

Level. 

Qa  Ira. 

The  Society  of  the  Rights  of  Man  engendered  the  Society  of 
Action.  These  were  impatient  individuals  who  broke  away 
and  hastened  ahead.  Other  associations  sought  to  recruit 
themselves  from  the  great  mother  societies.  The  members 
of  sections  complained  that  they  were  torn  asunder.  Thus, 
the  Gallic  Society,  and  the  committee  of  organization  of  the 
Municipalities.  Thus  the  associations  for  the  liberty  of  the 
press,  for  individual  liberty,  for  the  instruction  of  the  people 
against  indirect  taxes.  Then  the  Society  of  Equal  Working- 
men  which  was  divided  into  three  fractions,  the  levellers,  the 
communists,  the  reformers.  Then  the  Army  of  the  Bastilles, 
a  sort  of  cohort  organized  on  a  military  footing,  four  men 
commanded  by  a  corporal,  ten  by  a  sergeant,  twenty  by  a 
sub-licHitcnant,  forty  by  a  lieutenant;  there  were  never  more 
than  five  men  who  knew  each  other.  Creation  where  precau- 
tion is  combined  with  audacity  and  which  seemed  stamped 
with  the  genius  of  Venice. 

The  central  committee,  which  was  at  the  head,  had  two 
arms,  the  Society  of  Action,  and  the  Army  of  the  Bastilles. 


36  SAl XT-DEN IS 

A  legitimist  association,  the  Chevaliers  of  Fidelity,  stirred 
about  among  these  the  republican  affiliations.  It  was  de- 
nounced and  repudiated  there. 

The  Parisian  societies  had  ramifications  in  the  principal 
cities,  Lyons,  Xantes.  Lille,  Marseilles,  and  each  had  its 
Society  of  the  Rights  of  Man,  the  Charbonniere,  and  The 
Free  Men.  All  had  a  revolutionary  society  which  was 
called  the  Cougourde.  We  have  already  mentioned  this 
word. 

In  Paris,  the  Faubourg  Saint-Marceau  kept  up  an  equal 
buzzing  with  the  Faubourg  Saint-Antoine,  and  the  schools 
were  no  less  moved  than  the  faubourgs.  A  cafe  in  the  Rue 
Saint-Hyacinthe  and  the  wine-shop  of  the  Seven  Billiards, 
Rue  des  Mathurins-Saint-Jacques,  served  as  rallying  points 
for  the  students.  The  Society  of  the  Friends  of  the  ABC 
affiliated  to  the  Mutualists  of  Angers,  and  to  the  Cougourde 
of  Aix,  met,  as  we  have  seen,  in  the  Cafe  Musain.  These  same 
young  men  assembled  also,  as  we  have  stated  already,  in  a 
restaurant  wine-shop  of  the  Rue  Mondetour  which  was  called 
Corinthe.  These  meetings  were  secret.  Others  were  as  pub- 
lic as  possible,  and  the  reader  can  judge  of  their  boldness  from 
these  fragments  of  an  interrogatory  undergone  in  one  of  the 
ulterior  prosecutions:  "Where  was  this  meeting  held?"  "In 
the  Rue  de  la  Paix."  "At  whose  house?"  "In  the  street." 
"What  sections  were  there?"  "Only  one."  "Which?"  "The 
Manuel  section."  "Who  was  its  leader?"  "I."  "You  are 
too  young  to  have  decided  alone  upon  the  bold  course  of  attack- 
ing the  government.  Where  did  your  instructions  come 
from?"  "From  the  central  committee." 

The  army  was  mined  at  the  same  time  as  the  population,  as 
was  proved  subsequently  by  the  operations  of  Beford,  Lune- 
ville,  and  fipinard.  They  counted  on  the  fifty-second  regi- 
ment, on  the  fifth,  on  the  eighth,  on  the  thirty-seventh,  and 
on  the  twentieth  light  cavalry.  In  Burgundy  and  in  the 
southern  towns  they  planted  the  liberty  tree;  that  is  to  say, 
a  pole  surmounted  by  a  red  cap. 

Such  was  the  situation. 


A  FEW  PAGER  OF  HIKTOftY  37 

The  Faubourg  Saint-Antoine.  more  than  any  other  group 
of  the  population,  as  we  stated  in  the  beginning,  accentuated 
this  situation  and  made  it  felt.  That  was  the  sore  point. 
This  old  faubourg,  peopled  like  an  ant-hill,  laborious,  coura- 
geous, and  angry  as  a  hive  of  bees,  was  quivering  with  expecta- 
tion and  with  the  desire  for  a  tumult.  Everything  was  in  a 
state  of  agitation  there,  without  any  interruption,  however, 
of  the  regular  work.  It  is  impossible  to  convey  an  idea  of 
this  lively  yet  sombre  physiognomy.  In  this  faubourg  exists 
poignant  distress  hidden  under  attic  roofs;  there  also  exist 
rare  and  ardent  minds.  It  is  particularly  in  the  matter  of 
distress  and  intelligence  that  it  is  dangerous  to  have  extremes 
meet. 

The  Faubourg  Saint-Antoine  had  also  other  causes  to  trem- 
ble ;  for  it  received  the  counter-shock  of  commercial  crises,  of 
failures,  strikes,  slack  seasons,  all  inherent  to  great  political 
disturbances.  In  times  of  revolution  misery  is  both  cause  and 
effect.  The  blow  which  it  deals  rebounds  upon  it.  This  pop- 
ulation full  of  proud  virtue,  capable  to  the  highest  degree  of 
latent  heat,  always  ready  to  fly  to  arms,  prompt  to  explode, 
irritated,  deep,  undermined,  seemed  to  be  only  awaiting  the 
fall  of  a  spark.  Whenever  certain  sparks  float  on  the  horizon, 
chased  by  the  wind  of  events,  it  is  impossible  not  to  think  of 
the  Faubourg  Saint-Antoine  and  of  the  formidable  chance 
which  has  placed  at  the  very  gates  of  Paris  that  powder-house 
of  suffering  and  ideas. 

The  wine-shops  of  the  Faubourg  Antoine,  which  have  been 
more  than  once  drawn  in  the  sketches  which  the  reader  has 
just  perused,  possess  historical  notoriety.  In  troublous  times 
people  grow  intoxicated  there  more  on  words  than  on  wine.  A 
sort  of  prophetic  spirit  and  an  atllatus  of  the  future  circulates 
there,  swelling  hearts  and  enlarging  souls.  The  cabarets  of 
the  Faubourg  Saint-Antoine  resemble  those  taverns  of  Mont 
Aventine  erected  on  the  cave  of  the  Sibyl  and  communicating 
with  the  profound  and  sacred  breath ;  taverns  where  the  tables 
were  almost  tripods,  and  where  was  drunk  what  Eimius  calls 
the  sibylline  wine. 


33  8AINT-DEXI8 

The  Faubourg  Saint-Antoine  is  a  reservoir  of  people. 
Revolutionary  agitations  create  fissures  there,  through  which 
trickles  the  popular  sovereignty.  This  sovereignty  may  do 
evil ;  it  can  be  mistaken  like  any  other ;  but,  even  when  led 
astray,  it  remains  great.  We  may  say  of  it  as  of  the  blind 
cyclops,  Ingens. 

In  '93,  according  as  the  idea  which  was  floating  about  was 
good  or  evil,  according  as  it  was  the  day  of  fanaticism  or  of 
enthusiasm,  there  leaped  forth  from  the  Faubourg  Saint- 
Antoine  now  savage  legions,  now  heroic  bands. 

Savage.  Let  us  explain  this  word.  When  these  bristling 
men,  who  in  the  early  days  of  the  revolutionary  chaos,  tattered, 
howling,  wild,  with  uplifted  bludgeon,  pike  on  high,  hurled 
themselves  upon  ancient  Paris  in  an  uproar,  what  did  they 
want  ?  They  wanted  an  end  to  oppression,  an  end  to  tyranny, 
an  end  to  the  sword,  work  for  men,  instruction  for  the  child, 
social  sweetness  for  the  woman,  liberty,  equality,  fraternity, 
bread  for  all,  the  idea  for  all,  the  Edenizing  of  the  world. 
Progress ;  and  that  holy,  sweet,  and  good  thing,  progress, 
they  claimed  in  terrible  wise,  driven  to  extremities  as  they 
were,  half  naked,  club  in  fist,  a  roar  in  their  mouths.  They 
were  savages,  yes ;  but  the  savages  of  civilization. 

They  proclaimed  right  furiously  ;  they  were  desirous,  if  only 
with  fear  and  trembling,  to  force  the  human  race  to  paradise. 
They  seemed  barbarians,  and  they  were  saviours.  They  de- 
manded light  with  the  mask  of  night. 

Facing  these  men,  who  were  ferocious,  we  admit,  and  terri- 
fying, but  ferocious  and  terrifying  for  good  ends,  there  are 
other  men.  smiling,  embroidered,  gilded,  beribboned,  starred, 
in  silk  stockings,  in  white  plumes,  in  yellow  gloves,  in 
varnished  shoes,  who,  with  their  elbows  on  a  velvet  table, 
beside  a  marble  chimney-piece,  insist  gently  on  demeanor  and 
the  preservation  of  the  past,  of  the  Middle  Ages,  of  divine 
right,  of  fanaticism,  of  innocence,  of  slavery,  of  the  death 
penalty,  of  war,  glorifying  in  low  tones  and  with  politeness, 
the  sword,  the  stake,  and  the  scaffold.  For  our  part,  if  we 
were  forced  to  make  a  choice  between  the  barbarians  of  civili- 


A.  FEW  PAGES  OF  HISTORY  39 

zation  and  the  civilized  men  of  barbarism,  we  should  choose 
the  barbarians. 

But,  thank  Heaven,  still  another  choice  is  possible.  No 
perpendicular  fall  is  necessary,  in  front  any  more  than  in 
the  rear. 

Neither  despotism  nor  terrorism.  We  desire  progress  with 
a  gentle  slope. 

God  takes  care  of  that.  God's  whole  policy  consists  in  ren- 
dering slopes  less  steep. 


CHAPTER   VI 

ENJOLRAS  AND  HIS  LIEUTENANTS 

IT  was  about  this  epoch  that  Enjolras,  in  view  of  a  possible 
catastrophe,  instituted  a  kind  of  mysterious  census. 

All  were  present  at  a  secret  meeting  at  the  Cafe  Musain. 

Enjolras  said,  mixing  his  words  with  a  few  half-enigmatical 
but  significant  metaphors: — 

"It  is  proper  that  we  should  know  where  we  stand  and  on 
whom  we  may  count.  If  combatants  are  required,  they  must 
be  provided.  It  can  do  no  harm  to  have  something  with  which 
to  strike.  Passers-by  always  have  more  chance  of  being  gored 
when  there  are  bulls  on  the  road  than  when  there  are  none. 
Let  us,  therefore,  reckon  a  little  on  the  herd.  How  many  of  us 
are  there?  There  is  no  question  of  postponing  this  task  until 
to-morrow.  Revolutionists  should  always  be  hurried  ;  progress 
has  no  time  to  lose.  Let  us  mistrust  the  unexpected.  Let  us 
not  be  caught  unprepared.  We  must  go  over  all  the  seams  that 
we  have  made  and  see  whether  they  hold  fast.  This  business 
ought  to  be  concluded  to-day.  Courfcyrac,  you  will  see  the 
polytechnic  students.  It  is  their  day  to  go  out.  To-day  is 
Wednesday.  Feuilly,  you  will  see  those  of  the  Glaciere,  will 
you  not  ?  Combeferre  has  promised  me  to  go  to  Picpus. 
There  is  a  perfect  swarm  and  an  excellent  one  there.  Bahorel 
will  visit  the  Estrapade.  Prouvaire,  tho  masons  are  growing 


40  SAINT-DEMS 

lukewarm;  you  will  bring  us  news  from  the  lodge  of  the  Rue 
de  Grenelle-Saint-Honore.  Joly  will  go  to  Dupuytren's  clini- 
cal lecture,  and  feel  the  pulse  of  the  medical  school.  Bossuet 
will  take  a  little  turn  in  the  court  and  talk  with  the  young 
law  licentiates.  I  will  take  charge  of  the  Cougourde  myself." 

"That  arranges  everything,"  said  Courfeyrac. 

"No." 

"What  else  is  there?" 

"A  very  important  thing." 

"What  is  that?"  asked  Courfeyrac. 

"The  Barriere  du  Maine,"  replied  Enjolras. 

Enjolras  remained  for  a  moment  as  though  absorbed  in 
reflection,  then  he  resumed : — 

"At  the  Barriere  du  Maine  there  are  marble-workers,  paint- 
ers, and  journeymen  in  the  studios  of  sculptors.  They  are  an 
enthusiastic  family,  but  liable  to  cool  off.  I  don't  know  what 
has  been  the  matter  with  the-n  for  some  time  past.  They  are 
thinking  of  something  else.  They  are  becoming  extinguished. 
They  pass  their  time  playing  dominoes.  There  is  urgent  need 
that  some  one  should  go  and  talk  with  them  a  little,  but  with 
firmness.  They  meet  at  Richefeu's.  They  are  to  be  found 
there  between  twelve  and  one  o'clock.  Those  ashes  must  be 
fanned  into  a  glow.  For  that  errand  I  had  counted  on  that 
abstracted  Marius,  who  is  a  good  fellow  on  the  whole,  but  he 
no  longer  comes  to  us.  I  need  some  one  for  the  Barriere  du 
Miine.  I  have  no  one." 

"What  about  me?"  said  Grantaire.    "Here  am  I." 

"You  ?" 
<ct  }> 

"You  indoctrinate  republicans !  you  warm  up  hearts  that 
have  grown  cold  in  the  name  of  principle !" 
"Why  not?" 

"Are  you  good  for  anything?" 

"I  have  a  vague  ambition  in  that  direction,"  said  Grantaire. 
"You  do  not  believe  in  everything." 
"I  believe  in  you." 
"Grantaire,  will  you  do  me  a  service?" 


A  FEW  PAGES  OF  HISTORY  41 

"Anything.     I'll  black  your  boots." 

"Well,  don't  meddle  with  our  affairs.  Sleep  yourself  sober 
from  your  absinthe." 

"You  are  an  ingrate,  Enjolras." 

"You  the  man  to  go  to  the  Barriere  du  Maine !  You  capable 
of  it!" 

"I  am  capable  of  descending  the  Rue  de  Gres,  of  crossing 
the  Place  Saint-Michel,  of  sloping  through  the  Rue  Mon- 
sieur-le-Prince,  of  taking  the  Rue  de  Vaugirard,  of  passing 
the  Carmelites,  of  turning  into  the  Rue  d'Assas,  of  reaching 
the  Rue  du  Chcrche-Midi,  of  leaving  behind  me  the  Conseil 
de  Guerre,  of  pacing  the  Rue  des  Vielles  Tuileries,  of  striding 
across  the  boulevard,  of  following  the  Chaussee  du  Maine,  of 
passing  the  barrier,  and  entering  Richefeu's.  I  am  capable  of 
that.  My  shoes  are  capable  of  that." 

"Do  you  know  anything  of  those  comrades  who  meet  at 
Richefeu's  ?" 

"Not  much.     We  only  address  each  other  as  thou." 

"What  will  you   say   to   them  ?" 

"I  will  speak  to  them  of  Robespierre,  pardi !  Of  Danton. 
Of  principles." 

"You  ?" 

"I.  But  I  don't  receive  justice.  When  T  set  about  it,  I  am 
terrible.  I  have  read  Prudhomme,  I  know  the  Social  Contract, 
I  know  my  constitution  of  the  year  Two  by  heart.  'The 
liberty  of  one  citizen  ends  where  the  liberty  of  another  citizen 
begins.'  Do  you  take  mo  for  a  brute?  I  have  an  old  bank- 
bill  of  the  Republic  in  my  drawer.  The  Rights  of  Man,  the 
sovereignty  of  the  people,  sapristi !  I  am  even  a  bit  of  a 
Hebertist.  I  can  talk  the  most  superb  twaddle  for  six  hours 
by  the  clock,  watch  in  hand." 

"Be  serious,"  said  Enjolras. 

"I  am  wild,"  replied  Grantaire. 

Enjolras  meditated  for  a  few  moments,  and  made  the 
gesture  of  a  man  who  has  taken  a  resolution. 

"Grantaire,"  he  said  gravely,  "I  consent  to  try  you.  You 
shall  £0  to  the  Barriere  du  Maine." 


42  8AIXT-r>K\I8 

Grantaire  lived  in  furnished  lodgings  very  near  the  Cafe 
Musain.  He  went  out,  and  five  minutes  later  he  returned. 
He  had  gone  home  to  put  on  a  Robespierre  waistcoat. 

"Red,"  said  he  as  he  entered,  and  he  looked  intently  at 
Enjolras.  Then,  with  the  palm  of  his  energetic  hand,  he  laid 
the  two  scarlet  points  of  the  waistcoat  across  his  breast. 

And  stepping  up  to  Enjolras,  he  whispered  in  his  ear: — 

"Be  easy." 

He  jammed  his  hat  on  resolutely  and  departed. 

A  quarter  of  an  hour  later,  the  back  room  of  the  Cafe 
Musain  was  deserted.  All  the  friends  of  the  A  B  C  were 
gone,  each  in  his  own  direction,  each  to  his  own  task.  Enjol- 
ras, who  had  reserved  the  Cougourde  of  Aix  for  himself,  was 
the  last  to  leave. 

Those  members  of  the  Cougourde  of  Aix  who  were  in  Paris 
then  met  on  the  plain  of  Issy.  in  one  of  the  abandoned 
quarries  which  are  so  numerous  in  that  side  of  Paris. 

As  Enjolras  walked  towards  this  place,  he  passed  the  whole 
situation  in  review  in  his  own  mind.  The  gravity  of  events 
was  self-evident.  When  facts,  the  premonitory  symptoms  of 
latent  social  malady,  move  heavily,  the  slightest  complication 
stops  and  entangles  them.  A  phenomenon  whence  arises  ruin 
and  new  births.  Enjolras  descried  a  luminous  uplifting  be- 
neath the  gloomy  skirts  of  the  future.  Who  knows?  Perhaps 
the  moment  was  at  hand.  The  people  were  again  taking 
possession  of  right,  and  what  a  fine  spectacle !  The  revolu- 
tion was  again  majestically  taking  possession  of  France  and 
saying  to  the  world:  "The  sequel  to-morrow!"  Enjolras  was 
content.  The  furnace  was  being  heated.  He  had  at  that 
moment  a  powder  train  of  friends  scattered  all  over  Paris. 
He  composed,  in  his  own  mind,  with  Comboferre's  philosophi- 
cal and  penetrating  eloquence,  Feuilly's  cosmopolitan  enthusi- 
asm, Courfcyrac's  dash,  Bahorel's  smile,  Jean  Prouvaire's 
melancholy,  Joly's  science,  Bossuet's  sarcasms,  a  sort  of 
electric  spark  which  took  fire  nearly  everywhere  at  once.  All 
hands  to  work.  Surely,  the  result  would  answer  to  the  effort. 
This  was  well.  This  made  him  think  of  Grantaire. 


A  FEW  PAGES  OF  HISTORY  43 

"Hold,"  said  he  to  himself,  "the  Barriere  du  Maine  will 
not  take  me  far  out  of  my  way.  What  if  I  were  to  go  on  as 
far  as  Richefeu's?  Let  us  have  a  look  at  what  Grantaire  is 
about,  and  see  how  he  is  getting  on." 

One  o'clock  was  striking  from  the  Vaugirard  steeple  when 
Enjolras  reached  the  Richefeu  smoking-room. 

He  pushed  open  the  door,  entered,  folded  his  arms,  letting 
the  door  fall  to  and  strike  his  shoulders,  and  gazed  at  that 
room  filled  with  tables,  men,  and  smoke. 

A  voice  broke  forth  from  the  mist  of  smoke,  interrupted  by 
another  voice.  It  was  Grantaire  holding  a  dialogue  with  an 
adversary. 

Grantaire  was  sitting  opposite  another  figure,  at  a  marble 
Saint-Anne  table,  strewn  with  grains  of  bran  and  dotted  with 
dominos.  He  was  hammering  the  table  with  his  fist,  and  this 
is  what  Enjolras  heard : — 

"Double-six." 

"Fours." 

"The  pig !    I  have  no  more." 

"You  are  dead.    A  two." 

"Six." 

"Three." 

"One." 

"It's  my  move." 

"Four  points." 

"Not  much." 

"It's  your  turn." 

"I  have  made  an  enormous  mistake." 

"You  are  doing  well." 

"Fifteen." 

"Seven  more." 

"That  makes  me  twenty-two."  [Thoughtfully,  "Twenty- 
two  !"] 

"You  weren't  expecting  that  double-six.  If  1  had  placed 
it  at  the  beginning,  the  whole  play  would  have  been  changed." 

"A  two  again." 

"One." 


44  SAINT-DENIS 

"One !    Well,  five." 
"I  haven't  any." 
"It  was  your  play,  I  believe?" 
"Yes." 
"Blank." 

"What  luck  he  has  !    Ah  !    You  are  lucky  !    [Long  revery.] 
Two." 
"One." 

"Neither  five  nor  one.     That's  bad  for  you." 
"Domino." 
"Plague  take  it !" 


BOOK    SECOND.— EPONINE 

CHAPTER    I 
THE  LARK'S  MEADOW 

MARIUS  had  witnessed  the  unexpected  termination  of  the 
ambush  upon  whose  track  he  had  set  Javert ;  but  Javert  had 
no  sooner  quitted  the  building,  bearing  off  his  prisoners  in 
three  hackney-coaches,  than  Marius  also  glided  out  of  the 
house.  It  was  only  nine  o'clock  in  the  evening.  Marius 
betook  himself  to  Courfeyrac.  Courfeyrac  was  no  longer  the 
imperturbable  inhabitant  of  the  Latin  Quarter,  he  had  gone 
to  live  in  the  Eue  de  la  Verrerie  "for  political  reasons" ;  this 
quarter  was  one  where,  at  that  epoch,  insurrection  liked  to 
install  itself.  Marius  said  to  Courfeyrac:  "I  have  come  to 
sleep  with  you."  Courfeyrac  dragged  a  mattress  off  his  bed, 
which  was  furnished  with  two,  spread  it  out  on  the  floor,  and 
said:  "There." 

At  seven  o'clock  on  the  following  morning,  Marius  returned 
to  the  hovel,  paid  the  quarter's  rent  which  he  owed  to  Ma'am 
Bougon,  had  his  books,  his  bed,  his  table,  his  commode,  and 
his  two  chairs  loaded  on  a  hand-cart  and  went  off  without 
leaving  his  address,  so  that  when  Javert  returned  in  the  course 
of  the  morning,  for  the  purpose  of  questioning  Marius  as  to 
the  events  of  the  preceding  evening,  he  found  only  Ma'am 
Bougon,  who  answered:  "Moved  away!" 

Ma'am  Bougon  was  convinced  that  Marius  was  to  some 
extent  an  accomplice  of  the  robbers  who  had  been  seized  the 
night  before.  "Who  would  ever  have  said  it?"  she  exclaimed 
to  the  portresses  of  the  quarter,  "a  young  man  like  that,  who 
had  the  air  of  a  girl !" 


46  SAINT-DENIS 

Marius  had  two  reasons  for  this  prompt  change  of  residence. 
The  first  was,  that  he  now  had  a  horror  of  that  house,  where  he 
had  beheld,  so  close  at  hand,  and  in  its  most  repulsive  and  most 
ferocious  development,  a  social  deformity  which  is,  perhaps, 
eren  more  terrible  than  the  wicked  rich  man,  the  wicked  poor 
man.  The  second  was,  that  he  did  not  wish  to  figure  in  the 
lawsuit  which  would  insue  in  all  probability,  and  be  brought 
in  to  testify  against  Thenardier. 

Javert  thought  that  the  young  man,  whose  name  he  had  for- 
gotten, was  afraid,  and  had  fled,  or  perhaps,  had  not  even 
returned  home  at  the  time  of  the  ambush ;  he  made  some 
efforts  to  find  him,  however,  but  without  success. 

A  month  passed,  then  another.  Marius  was  still  with  Cour- 
feyrac.  He  had  learned  from  a  young  licentiate  in  law,  an 
habitual  frequenter  of  the  courts,  that  Thenardier  was  in  close 
confinement.  Every  Monday,  Marius  had  five  francs  handed 
in  to  the  clerk's  office  of  La  Force  for  Thenardier. 

As  Marius  had  no  longer  any  money,  he  borrowed  the  five 
francs  from  Courfeyrac.  It  was  the  first  time  in  his  life  that 
he  had  ever  borrowed  money.  These  periodical  five  francs 
were  a  double  riddle  to  Courfeyrac  who  lent  and  to  Thenardier 
who  received  them.  "To  whom  can  they  go?"  thought  Cour- 
feyrac. "Whence  can  this  come  to  me?"  Thenardier  asked 
himself. 

Moreover,  Marius  was  heart-broken.  Everything  had 
plunged  through  a  trap-door  once  more.  He  no  longer  saw 
anything  before  him ;  his  life  was  again  buried  in  mystery 
where  he  wandered  fumblingly.  He  had  for  a  moment  beheld 
very  close  at  hand,  in  that  obscurity,  the  young  girl  whom  he 
loved,  the  old  man  who  seemed  to  be  her  father,  those  unknown 
beings,  who  were  his  only  interest  and  his  only  hope  in  this 
world ;  and,  at  the  very  moment  when  he  thought  himself 
on  the  point  of  grasping  them,  a  gust  had  swept  all  these  shad- 
ows away.  Not  a  spark  of  certainty  and  truth  had  been 
emitted  even  in  the  most  terrible  of  collisions.  Xo  conjecture 
was  possible.  He  no  longer  knew  even  the  name  that  he 
thought  he  knew.  It  certainly  was  not  Ursule.  And  the  Lark 


8PONINE  47 

was  a  nickname.  And  what  was  he  to  think  of  the  old  man? 
Was  he  actually  in  hiding  from  the  police?  The  white-haired 
workman  whom  Marius  had  encountered  in  the  vicinity  of 
the  Invalides  recurred  to  his  mind.  It  now  seemed  probable 
that  that  workingman  and  M.  Leblanc  were  one  and  the  same 
person.  So  he  disguised  himself?  That  man  had  his  heroic 
and  his  equivocal  sides.  Why  had  he  not  called  for  help  ?  Why 
had  he  fled?  Was  he,  or  was  he  not,  the  father  of  the  young 
girl?  Was  he,  in  short,  the  man  whom  Thenardier  thought 
that  he  recognized  ?  Thenardier  might  have  been  mistaken. 
These  formed  so  many  insoluble  problems.  All  this,  it  is 
true,  detracted  nothing  from  the  angelic  charms  of  the  young 
girl  of  the  Luxembourg.  Heart-rending  distress;  Marius  bore 
a  passion  in  his  heart,  and  night  over  his  eyes.  He  was  thrust 
onward,  he  was  drawn,  and  he  could  not  stir.  All  had  van- 
ished, save  love.  Of  love  itself  he  had  lost  the  instincts  and  the 
sudden  illuminations.  Ordinarily,  this  flame  which  burns  us 
lights  us  also  a  little,  and  casts  some  useful  gleams  without. 
But  Marius  no  longer  even  heard  these  mute  counsels  of  pas- 
sion. He  never  said  to  himself:  "What  if  I  were  to  go  to  such 
a  place?  What  if  I  were  to  try  such  and  such  a  thing?"  The 
girl  whom  he  could  no  longer  call  Ursule  was  evidently  some- 
where; nothing  warned  Marius  in  what  direction  he  should 
seek  her.  His  whole  life  was  now  summed  up  in  two  words; 
absolute  uncertainty  within  an  impenetrable  fog.  To  see  her 
once  again;  he  still  aspired  to  this,  but  he  no  longer  expected 
it. 

To  crown  all,  his  poverty  had  returned.  He  felt  that  icy 
breath  close  to  him,  on  his  heels.  In  the  midst  of  his  tor- 
ments, and  long  before  this,  he  had  discontinued  his  work,  and 
nothing  is  more  dangerous  than  discontinued  work ;  it  is  a 
habit  which  vanishes.  A  habit  which  is  easy  to  get  rid  of,  and 
diflicult  to  take  up  again. 

A  certain  amount  of  dreaming  is  good,  like  a  narcotic  in  dis- 
creet doses.  It  lulls  to  sleep  the  fevers  of  the  mind  at  labor, 
which  are  sometimes  severe,  and  produces  in  the  spirit  a  soft 
and  fresh  vapor  which  corrects  the  over-harsh  contours  of 


48  8AINT-DEXI8 

pure  thought,  fills  in  gaps  here  and  there,  binds  together  and 
rounds  off  the  angles  of  the  ideas.  But  too  much  dreaming 
sinks  and  drowns.  Woe  to  the  brain-worker  who  allows  him- 
self to  fall  entirely  from  thought  into  revery !  He  thinks  that 
he  can  re-ascend  with  equal  ease,  and  he  tells  himself  that, 
after  all,  it  is  the  same  thing.  Error ! 

Thought  is  the  toil  of  the  intelligence,  revery  its  voluptu- 
ousness. To  replace  thought  with  revery  is  to  confound  a 
poison  with  a  food. 

Marius  had  begun  in  that  way,  as  the  reader  will  remem- 
ber. Passion  had  supervened  and  had  finished  the  work  of 
precipitating  him  into  chimaeras  without  object  or  bottom. 
One  no  longer  emerges  from  one's  self  except  for  the  purpose 
of  going  off  to  dream.  Idle  production.  Tumultuous  and 
stagnant  gulf.  And,  in  proportion  as  labor  diminishes,  needs 
increase.  This  is  a  law.  Man,  in  a  state  of  revery,  is  gener- 
ally prodigal  and  slack;  the  unstrung  mind  cannot  hold  life 
within  close  bounds. 

There  is,  in  that  mode  of  life,  good  mingled  with  evil,  for 
if  enervation  is  baleful,  generosity  is  good  and  healthful.  But 
the  poor  man  who  is  generous  and  noble,  and  who  does  not 
work,  is  lost.  Resources  arc  exhausted,  needs  crop  up. 

Fatal  declivity  down  which  the  most  honest  and  the  firmest 
as  well  as  the  most  feeble  and  most  vicious  are  drawn,  and 
which  ends  in  one  of  two  holds,  suicide  or  crime. 

By  dint  of  going  outdoors  to  think,  the  day  comes  when  one 
goes  out  to  throw  one's  self  in  the  water. 

Excess  of  revery  breeds  men  like  Escousse  and  Lcbras. 

Marius  was  descending  this  declivity  at  a  slow  pace,  with 
his  eyes  fixed  on  the  girl  whom  he  no  longer  saw.     What  we 
have  just  written  seems  strange,  and  yet  it  is  true.     The  mem- 
ory of  an  absent  being  kindles  in  the  darkness  of  the  heart; 
the  more  it  has  disappeared,  the  more  it  beams ;  the  gloom) 
and  despairing  soul  sees  this  light  on  its  horizon  :  the  star  c 
the  inner  night.     She — that  was  Marius'  whole  thought.     P 
meditated  of  nothing  else;  he  was  confusedly  conscious  th 
his  old  coat  was  becoming  an  impossible  coat,  and  that  his  n-  6 


&PONINE  49 

coat  was  growing  old,  that  his  shirts  were  wearing  out,  that 
his  hat  was  wearing  out,  that  his  boots  were  giving  out,  and 
he  said  to  himself:  "If  I  could  but  see  her  once  again  before 
I  die!" 

One  sweet  idea  alone  was  left  to  him,  that  she  had  loved 
him,  that  her  glance  had  told  him  so,  that  she  did  not  know 
his  name,  but  that  she  did  know  his  soul,  and  that,  wherever 
she  was,  however  mysterious  the  place,  she  still  loved  him, 
perhaps.  Who  knows  whether  she  were  not  thinking  of  him 
as  he  was  thinking  of  her?  Sometimes,  in  those  inexplicable 
hours  such  as  are  experienced  by  every  heart  that  loves,  though 
he  had  no  reasons  for  anything  but  sadness  and  yet  felt  an 
obscure  quiver  of  joy,  he  said  to  himself :  "It  is  her  thoughts 
that  are  coming  to  me!"  Then  he  added:  "Perhaps  my 
thoughts  reach  her  also." 

This  illusion,  at  which  he  shook  his  head  a  moment  later, 
was  sufficient,  nevertheless,  to  throw  beams,  which  at  times  re- 
sembled hope,  into  his  soul.  From  time  to  time,  especially  at 
that  evening  hour  which  is  the  most  depressing  to  even  the 
dreamy,  he  allowed  the  purest,  the  most  impersonal,  the  most 
ideal  of  the  reveries  which  filled  his  brain,  to  fall  upon  a  note- 
book which  contained  nothing  else.  He  called  this  "writing 
to  her." 

It  must  not  be  supposed  that  his  reason  was  deranged. 
Quite  the  contrary.  He  had  lost  the  faculty  of  working  and 
of  moving  firmly  towards  any  fixed  goal,  but  he  was  endowed 
with  more  clear-sightedness  and  rectitude  than  ever.  Marina 
surveyed  by  a  calm  and  real,  although  peculiar  light,  what 
passed  before  his  eyes,  even  the  most  indifferent  deeds  and 
men;  he  pronounced  a  just  criticism  on  everything  with  a 
sort  of  honest  dejection  and  candid  disinterestedness.  His 
judgment,  which  was  almost  wholly  disassociated  from  hope, 
held  itself  aloof  and  soared  on  high. 

In  this  state  of  mind  nothing  escaped  him,  nothing  de- 
'  »ived  him,  and  every  moment  he  was  discovering  the  founda- 
N  >n  of  life,  of  humanity,  and  of  destiny.  Happy,  even  in  the 

!dst  of  anguish,  is  he  to  whom  CJod  has  given  a  soul  worthy 


50  8AIXT-DENI8 

of  love  and  of  unhappiness!  He  who  has  not  viewed  tl 
things  of  this  world  and  the  heart  of  man  under  this  doul 
light  has  seen  nothing  and  knows  nothing  of  the  true. 

The    soul    which    loves    and    suffers    is    in    a    state 
sublimity. 

However,  day  followed  day,  and  nothing  new  present*, 
itself.    It  merely  seemed  to  him,  that  the  sombre  space  whic 
still  remained  to  be  traversed  by  him  was  growing  snorter  witj 
every  instant.    He  thought  that  he  already  distinctly  perceivec 
the  brink  of  the  bottomless  abyss. 

"What !"  he  repeated  to  himself,  "shall  I  not  see  her  again 
before  then !" 

When  you  have  ascended  the  Rue  Saint-Jacques,  left  the 
barrier  on  one  side  and  followed  the  old  inner  boulevard  foi 
some  distance,  you  reach  the  Rue  de  la  Sante,  then  the  Gla 
ciere,  and,  a  little  while  before  arriving  at  the  little  river  of  th( 
Gobelins,  you  come  to  a  sort  of  field  which  is  the  only  spo' 
in  the  long  and  monotonous  chain  of  the  boulevards  of  Pari* 
where  Ruysdeel  would  be  tempted  to  sit  down. 

There  is  something  indescribable  there  which  exhales  gra* 
a  green  meadow  traversed  by  tightly  stretched  lines,  frc 
which  flutter  rags  drying  in  the  wind,  and  an  old  market-gf 
dener's  house,  built  in  the  time  of  Louis  XIII.,  with  its  grc 
roof  oddly  pierced  with  dormer  windows,  dilapidated  palisade 
a  little  water  amid  poplar-trees,  women,  voices,  laughter;  01 
the  horizon  the  Pantheon,  the  pole  of  the  Deaf-Mutes,  thi 
Val-de-Grace,  black,  squat,  fantastic,  amusing,  magnificent, 
and  in  the  background,  the  severe  square  crests  of  the  towers  of 
Notre  Dame. 

As  the  place  is  worth  looking  at,  no  one  goes  thither. 
Hardly  one  cart  or  wagoner  passes  in  a  quarter  of  an  hour. 

It  chanced  that  Marius'  solitary  strolls  led  him  to  this  plot 
of  ground,  near  the  water.  That  day,  there  was  a  rarity  on 
the  boulevard,  a  passer-by.  Marius,  vaguely  impressed  with 
the  almost  savage  beauty  of  the  place,  asked  this  passer-by: — 
"What  is  the  name  of  this  spot?" 

The  person  replied :    "It  is  the  Lark's  meadow." 


&PONINE  51 

And  he  added:    "It  was  here  that  Ulbach  killed  the  shep- 
'  srdess  of  Ivry." 
•  But  after  the  word  "Lark"  Marius  heard  nothing  more. 

hese  sudden  congealments  in  the  state  of  revery,  which  a 
.ngle  word  suffices  to  evoke,  do  occur.    The  entire  thought  is 
ibruptly  condensed  around  an  idea,  and  it  is  no  longer  capable 
of  perceiving  anything  else. 

The  Lark  was  the  appellation  which  had  replaced  Ursule  in 
the  depths  of  Marius'  melancholy. — "Stop,"  said  he  with  a 
sort  of  unreasoning  stupor  peculiar  to  these  mysterious  asides, 
"this  is  her  meadow.  I  shall  know  where  she  lives  now." 

It  was  absurd,  but  irresistible. 

And  every  day  he  returned  to  that  meadow  of  the  Lark. 

CHAPTER   II 

EMBRYONIC    FORMATION    OF    CRIMES    IN    THE    INCUBATION    OP 

PRISONS 

JA VERT'S  triumph  in  the  Gorbeau  hovel  seemed  complete, 
ut  had  not  been  so. 

In  the  first  place,  and  this  constituted  the  principal  anxiety, 
Javert  had  not  taken  the  prisoner  prisoner.  The  assassinated 
man  who  flees  is  more  suspicious  that  the  assassin,  and  it  is 
probable  that  this  personage,  who  had  been  so  precious  a  cap- 
ture for  the  ruffians,  would  be  no  less  fine  a  prize  for  the  au- 
thorities. 

And  then,  Montparnasse  had  escaped  Javert. 

Another  opportunity  of  laying  hands  on  that  "devil's 
dandy"  must  be  waited  for.  Montparnasse  had,  in  fact,  en- 
countered fiponine  as  she  stood  on  the  watch  under  the  trees 
of  the  boulevard,  and  had  led  her  off,  preferring  to  play  Ne- 
moriu  with  the  daughter  rather  than  Schinderhanues  with 
the  father.  It  was  well  that  he  did  so.  He  was  free.  As  for 
fiponine,  Javert  had  caused  her  to  be  seized ;  a  mediocre  con- 
solation, fiponine  had  joined  Azehna  at  Les  Madelonettes. 


52  SAINT-DENIS 

And  finally,  on  the  way  from  the  Gorbeau  house  to  La  Force, ' 
one  of  the  principal  prisoners,  Claquesous,  had  been  lost.  It  was 
not  known  how  this  had  been  effected,  the  police  agents  and 
the  sergeants  "could  not  understand  it  at  all."  He  had  con- 
verted himself  into  vapor,  he  had  slipped  through  the  hand- 
cuffs, he  had  trickled  through  the  crevices  of  the  carriage,  the 
fiacre  was  cracked,  and  he  had  fled;  all  that  they  were  able 
to  say  was,  that  on  arriving  at  the  prison,  there  was  no  Cla- 
queeous.  Either  the  fairies  or  the  police  had  had  a  hand  in  • 
it.  Had  Claquesous  melted  into  the  shadows  like  a  snow-flake 
in  water?  Had  there  been  unavowed  connivance  of  the  police 
agents?  Did  this  man  belong  to  the  double  enigma  of  order 
and  disorder?  Was  he  concentric  with  infraction  and  re- 
pression? Had  this  sphinx  his  fore  paws  in  crime  and  his  ' 
hind  paws  in  authority?  Javert  did  not  accept  such  commi-  • 
nations,  and  would  have  bristled  up  against  such  compromises ; 
but  his  squad  included  other  inspectors  besides  himself,  who 
were  more  initiated  than  he,  perhaps,  although  they  were  his 
subordinates  in  the  secrets  of  the  Prefecture,  and  Claquesous 
had  been  such  a  villain  that  he  might  make  a  very  good  agent. 
It  is  an  excellent  thing  for  ruffianism  and  an  admirable  thing 
for  the  police  to  be  on  such  intimate  juggling  terms  with  the 
night.  These  double-edged  rascals  do  exist.  However  that 
may  be,  Claquesous  had  gone  astray  and  was  not  found  again. 
Javert  appeared  to  be  more  irritated  than  amazed  at  this. 

As  for  Marius,  "that  booby  of  a  lawyer/'  who  had  probably 
become  frightened,  and  whose  name  Javert  had  forgotten, 
Javert  attached  very  little  importance  to  him.  Moreover,  a 
lawyer  can  be  hunted  up  at  any  time.  But  was  he  a  lawyer 
after  all  ? 

The  investigation  had  begun. 

The  magistrate  had  thought  it  advisable  not  to  put  one  of 
these  men  of  the  band  of  Patron  Minette  in  close  confinement, 
in  the  hope  that  he  would  chatter.  This  man  was  Brujon,  the 
long-baired  man  of  the  Rue  du  Petit-Banquier.  He  had  been 
let  loose  in  the  Charlemagne  courtyard,  and  the  eyes  of  the 
watchers  were  fixed  on  him. 


tiPONINE  53 

This  name  of  Brujon  is  one  of  the  souvenirs  of  La  Force. 
In  that  hideous  courtyard,  called  the  court  of  the  Batirnent- 
Neuf  (Xew  Building),  which  the  administration  called  the 
court  Saint-Bernard,  and  which  the  robbers  called  the  Fosse- 
aux-Lions  (The  Lion's  Ditch),  on  that  wall  covered  with 
scales  and  leprosy,  which  rose  on  the  left  to  a  level  with  the 
roofs,  near  an  old  door  of  rusty  iron  which  led  to  the  ancient 
chapel  of  the  ducal  residence  of  La  Force,  then  turned  in  a 
dormitory  for  ruffians,  there  could  still  be  seen,  twelve  years 
ago,  a  sort  of  fortress  roughly  carved  in  the  stone  with  a  nail, 
and  beneath  it  this  signature: — 

BRtJJON,  1811. 

The  Brujon  of  1811  was  the  father  of  the  Brujon  of  1832. 

The  latter,  of  whom  the  reader  caught  but  a  glimpse  at  the 
Gorbeau  house,  was  a  very  cunning  and  very  adroit  young 
spark,  with  a  bewildered  and  plaintive  air.  It  was  in  conse- 
quence of  this  plaintive  air  that  the  magistrate  had  released 
him,  thinking  him  more  useful  in  the  Charlemagne  yard  than 
in  close  confinement. 

Robbers  do  not  interrupt  their  profession  because  they  are 
in  the  hands  of  justice.  They  do  not  let  themselves  be  put  out 
by  such  a  trifle  as  that.  To  be  in  prison  for  one  crime  is  no 
reason  for  not  beginning  on  another  crime.  They  are  artists, 
who  have  one  picture  in  the  salon,  and  who  toil,  none  the  less, 
on  a  new  work  in  their  studios. 

Brujon  seemed  to  be  stupefied  by  prison.  He  could  some- 
times be  seen  standing  by  the  hour  together  in  front  of  the 
sutler's  window  in  the  Charlemagne  yard,  staring  like  an  idiot 
at  the  sordid  list  of  prices  which  began  with :  t/arlic,  (>'2 
centimes,  and  ended  with:  cigar,  5  centimes.  Or  he  passed 
his  time  in  trembling,  chattering  his  teeth,  saying  that  he 
had  a  fever,  and  inquiring  whether  one  of  the  eight  and 
twenty  beds  in  the  fever  ward  was  vacant. 

All  at  once,  towards  the  end  of  February.  1S3'2,  it  was  dis- 
covered that  Brujon,  that  somnolent  fellow,  had  had  three 
different  commissions  executed  by  the  errand-men  of  the 


54  SAINT-DENIS 

establishment,  not  under  his  own  name,  but  in  the  name  of 
three  of  his  comrades;  and  they  had  cost  him  in  all  fifty 
sous,  an  exorbitant  outlay  which  attracted  the  attention  of 
the  prison  corporal. 

Inquiries  were  instituted,  and  on  consulting  the  tariff  of 
commissions  posted  in  the  convict's  parlor,  it  was  learned 
that  the  fifty  sous  could  be  analyzed  as  follows :  three  commis- 
sions :  one  to  the  Pantheon,  ten  sous ;  one  to  Val-de-Grace, 
fifteen  sous;  and  one  to  the  Barriere  de  Crenelle,  twenty-five 
sous.  This  last  was  the  dearest  of  the  whole  tariff.  Now,  at 
the  Pantheon,  at  the  Val-de-Grace.  and  at  the  Barriere  de 
Crenelle  were  situated  the  domiciles  of  the  three  very  redoubt- 
able prowlers  of  the  barriers,  Kruideniers,  alias  Bizarro, 
Glorieux,  an  ex-convict,  and  Barre-Carosse,  upon  whom  the 
attention  of  the  police  was  directed  by  this  incident.  It  was 
thought  that  these  men  were  members  of  Patron  Minette; 
two  of  those  leaders,  Babet  and  Gueulemer,  had  been  captured. 
It  was  supposed  that  the  messages,  which  had  been  addressed, 
not  to  houses,  but  to  people  who  were  waiting  for  them  in 
the  street,  must  have  contained  information  with  regard  to 
some  crime  that  had  been  plotted.  They  were  in  possession 
of  other  indications ;  they  laid  hand  on  the  three  prowlers, 
and  supposed  that  they  had  circumvented  some  one  or  other 
of  Brujon's  machinations. 

About  a  week  after  these  measures  had  been  taken,  one 
night,  as  the  superintendent  of  the  watch,  who  had  been 
inspecting  the  lower  dormitory  in  the  Batiment-Neuf,  was 
about  to  drop  his  chestnut  in  the  box — this  was  the  means 
adopted  to  make  sure  that  the  watchmen  performed  their 
duties  punctually;  every  hour  a  chestnut  must  be  dropped 
into  all  the  boxes  nailed  to  the  doors  of  the  dormitories — a 
watchman  looked  through  the  peep-hole  of  the  dormitory  and 
beheld  Brujon  sitting  on  his  bed  and  writing  something  by  the 
light  of  the  hall-lamp.  The  guardian  entered,  Brujon  was 
put  in  a  solitary  cell  for  a  month,  but  they  were  not  able  to 
seize  what  he  had  written.  The  police  learned  nothing  fur- 
ther about  it. 


SPONINE  55 

What  is  certain  is,  that  on  the  following  morning,  a  "postil- 
ion" was  flung  from  the  Charlemagne  yard  into  the  Lions' 
Ditch,  over  the  five-story  building  which  separated  the  two 
court-yards. 

What  prisoners  call  a  "postilion"  is  a  pallet  of  bread  artis- 
tically moulded,  which  is  sent  into  Ireland,  that  is  to  say, 
over  the  roofs  of  a  prison,  from  one  courtyard  to  another. 
Etymology:  over  England;  from  one  land  to  another;  into 
Ireland.  This  little  pellet  falls  in  the  yard.  The  man  who 
picks  it  up  opens  it  and  finds  in  it  a  note  addressed  to  some 
prisoner  in  that  yard.  If  it  is  a  prisoner  who  finds  the  treas- 
ure, he  forwards  the  note  to  its  destination ;  if  it  is  a  keeper, 
or  one  of  the  prisoners  secretly  sold  who  are  called  sheep  in 
prisons  and  foxes  in  the  galleys,  the  note  is  taken  to  .the  office 
and  handed  over  to  the  police. 

On  this  occasion,  the  postilion  reached  its  address,  although 
the  person  to  whom  it  was  addressed  was,  at  that  moment,  in 
solitary  confinement.  This  person  was  no  other  than  Babet, 
one  of  the  four  heads  of  Patron  Minette. 

The  postilion  contained  a  roll  of  paper  on  which  only  these 
two  lines  were  written: — 

"Babet.  There  is  an  affair  in  the  Rue  Plumet.  A  gate  on 
a  garden." 

This  is  what  Brujon  had  written  the  night  before. 

In  spite  of  male  and  female  searchers,  Babet  managed  to 
pass  the  note  on  from  La  Force  to  the  Salpetriere,  to  a  "good 
friend"  whom  he  had  and  who  was  shut  up  there.  This  woman 
in  turn  transmitted  the  note  to  another  woman  of  her  ac- 
quaintance, a  certain  Magnon,  who  was  strongly  suspected  by 
the  police,  though  not  yet  arrested.  This  Magnon,  whose 
name  the  reader  has  already  seen,  had  relations  with  the 
Thenardicr.  which  will  be  described  in  detail  later  on,  and 
she  could,  by  going  to  see  lilponine,  serve  as  a  bridge  between 
the  Salpetriere  and  Les  Madolonettes. 

It  happened,  that  at  precisely  that  moment,  as  proofs  were 
wanting  in  the  investigation  directed  against  Thenardier  in 
the  matter  of  his  daughters,  fiponine  and  Azelma  were  re- 


56  SAINT  DEN  1 8 

leased.  When  fiponine  came  out,  Magnon,  who  was  watching 
the  gate  of  the  Madelonettes,  handed  her  Brujon's  note  to 
Babet,  charging  her  to  look  into  the  matter. 

fiponine  went  to  the  Rue  Plumet,  recognized  the  gate  and 
the  garden,  observed  the  house,  spied,  lurked,  and,  a  few  days 
later,  brought,  to  Magnon,  who  delivers  in  the  Rue  Cloche- 
perce,  a  biscuit,  which  Magnon  transmitted  to  Babet's  mistress 
in  the  Salpetriere.  A  biscuit,  in  the  shady  symbolism  of 
prisons,  signifies:  Nothing  to  be  done. 

So  that  in  less  than  a  week  from  that  time,  as  Brujon  and 
Babet  met  in  the  circle  of  La  Force,  the  one  on  his  way  to  the 
examination,  the  other  on  his  way  from  it : — 

"Well?"  asked  Brujon,  "the  Rue  P.?" 

"Biscuit."  replied  Babet.  Thus  did  the  foetus  of  crime 
engendered  by  Brujon  in  La  Force  miscarry. 

This  miscarriage  had  its  consequences,  however,  which  were 
perfectly  distinct  from  Brujon's  programme.  The  reader  will 
see  what  they  were. 

Often  when  we  think  we  are  knotting  one  thread,  we  are 
tying  quite  another. 


CHAPTER    III 

APPARITION  TO   FATHER  MABEUP 

MARICS  no  longer  went  to  see  any  one,  but  he  sometimes 
encountered  Father  Mabcuf  by  chance. 

While  Marius  was  slowly  descending  those  melancholy  steps 
vhich  may  be  called  the  cellar  stairs,  and  which  lead  to  places 
without  light,  where  the  happy  can  be  heard  walking  over- 
head, M.  Mabouf  was  descending  on  hi?  side. 

The  Flora  of  Cauteretz  no  longer  sold  at  all.  The  experi- 
ments on  indigo  had  not  been  successful  in  the  little  garden  of 
Auptorlitz.  which  had  a  bad  exposure.  M.  Mabeuf  could 
cultivate  there  only  a  few  plants  which  love  shade  and  damp- 
ness. Nevertheless,  he  did  not  become  discouraged.  He  had 


EPOXINE  57 

obtained  a  corner  in  the  Jardin  des  Plantes,  with  a  good 
exposure,  to  make  his  trials  with  indigo  "at  his  own  expense." 
For  this  purpose  he  had  pawned  his  copperplates  of  the  Flora. 
He  had  reduced  his  breakfast  to  two  eggs,  and  he  left  one  of 
these  for  his  old  servant,  to  whom  he  had  paid  no  wages  for 
the  last  fifteen  months.  And  often  his  breakfast  was  his 
only  meal.  He  no  longer  smiled  with  his  infantile  smile,  he 
had  grown  morose  and  no  longer  received  visitors.  Marius 
did  well  not  to  dream  of  going  thither.  Sometimes,  at  the 
hour  when  M.  Mabeuf  was  on  his  way  to  the  Jardin  des 
Plantes,  the  old  man  and  the  young  man  passed  each  other 
on  the  Boulevard  de  FHopital.  They  did  not  speak,  and  only 
exchanged  a  melancholy  sign  of  the  hea/1.  A  heart-breaking 
thing  it  is  that  there  comes  a  moment  when  misery  looses 
bonds!  Two  men  who  have  been  friends  become  two  chance 
passers-by. 

Royol  the  bookseller  was  dead.  M.  Mabeuf  no  longer  knew 
his  books,  his  garden,  or  his  indigo :  these  were  the  three  forms 
which  happiness,  pleasure,  and  hope  had  assumed  for  him. 
This  sufficed  him  for  his  living.  He  said  to  himself :  <r\Vhen 
I  shall  have  made  my  balls  of  blueing,  I  shall  be  rich,  I  will 
withdraw  my  copperplates  from  the  pawn-shop,  I  will  put  my 
Flora  in  vogue  again  with  trickery,  plenty  of  money,  and 
advertisements  in  the  newspapers  and  I  will  buy,  I  know  well 
where,  a  copy  of  Pierre  de  Medine's  Art  dc  Naviguer,  with 
wood-cuts,  edition  of  1655."  In  the  meantime,  he  toiled  all 
day  over  his  plot  of  indigo,  and  at  night  he  returned  home  to 
water  his  garden,  and  to  read  his  books.  At  that  epoch,  M. 
Mabeuf  was  nearly  eighty  years  of  age. 

One  evening  he  had  a  singular  apparition. 

He  had  returned  home  while  it  was  still  broad  daylight. 
Mother  Plutarque,  whose  health  was  declining,  was  ill  and  in 
bed.  He  had  dined  on  a  bone,  on  which  a  little  meat  lingered, 
and  a  bit  of  bread  that  he  had  found  on  the  kitchen  table,  and 
had  seated  himself  on  an  overturned  stone  post,  which  took 
the  place  of  a  bench  in  his  garden. 

Near  this  bench  there  rose,  after  the  fashion  in  orchard- 


58 

gardens,  a  sort  of  largo  chest,  of  beams  and  planks,  much 
dilapidated,  a  rabbit-hutch  on  the  ground  floor,  a  fruit-closet 
on  the  first.  There  was  nothing  in  the  hutch,  but  there  were 
a  few  apples  in  the  fruit-closet, — the  remains  of  the  winter's 
provision. 

M.  Mabeuf  had  set  himself  to  turning  over  and  reading, 
with  the  aid  of  his  glasses,  two  books  of  which  he  was  passion- 
ately fond  and  in  which,  a  serious  thing  at  his  age,  he  was 
interested.  His  natural  timidity  rendered  him  accessible  to 
the  acceptance  of  superstitions  in  a  certain  degree.  The  first 
of  these  books  was  the  famous  treatise  of  President  Delancre, 
De  I'lnconstance  des  Demons;  the  other  was  a  quarto  by 
Mutor  de  la  Rubaudiere,  Sur  les  Diablcs  de  Vauvert  et  les 
Gobelins  de  la  Bievre.  This  last-mentioned  old  volume  inter- 
ested him  all  the  more,  because  his  garden  had  been  one  of 
the  spots  haunted  by  goblins  in  former  times.  The  twilight 
had  begun  to  whiten  what  was  on  high  and  to  blacken  all 
below.  As  he  read,  over  the  top  of  the  book  which  he  held  in 
his  hand.  Father  Mabeuf  was  surveying  his  plants,  and  among 
others  a  magnificent  rhododendron  which  was  one  of  his  con- 
solations; four  days  of  heat,  wind,  and  sun  without  a  drop 
of  rain,  had  passed ;  the  stalks  were  bending,  the  buds  droop- 
ing, the  leaves  falling;  all  this  needed  water,  the  rhododen- 
dron was  particularly  sad.  Father  Mabeuf  was  one  of  those 
persons  for  whom  plants  have  souls.  The  old  man  had  toiled 
all  day  over  his  indigo  plot,  he  was  worn  out  with  fatigue,  but 
he  rose,  laid  his  books  on  the  bench,  and  walked,  all  bent  over 
and  with  tottering  footsteps,  to  the  well,  but  when  he  had 
grasped  the  chain,  he  could  not  even  draw  it  sufficiently  to 
unhook  it.  Then  he  turned  round  and  cast  a  glance  of  anguish 
toward  heaven  which  was  becoming  studded  with  stars. 

The  evening  had  that  serenity  which  overwhelms  the 
troubles  of  man  beneath  an  indescribably  mournful  and 
eternal  joy.  The  night  promised  to  be  as  arid  as  the  day 
had  been. 

"Stars  everywhere !"  thought  the  old  man ;  "not  the  tiniesi 
cloud  !  Not  a  drop  of  water  I" 


THE    SOUND    OF    THE    WATERING-POT    ON     THE     LEAVES    FILLED 
FATHER     MABEUF'S    SOUL    WITH     ECSTASY. 


EPOXINE  59 

And  his  head,  which  had  been  upraised  for  a  moment,  fell 
back  upon  his  breast. 

He  raised  it  again,  and  once  more  looked  at  the  sky,  mur- 
muring : — 

"A  tear  of  dew!     A  little  pity !" 

He  tried  again  to  unhook  the  chain  of  the  well,  and  could 
not. 

At  that  moment,  he  heard  a  voice  saying : — 

"Father  Mabeuf,  would  you  like  to  have  me  water  your 
garden  for  you?" 

At  the  same  time,  a  noise  as  of  a  wild  animal  passing 
became  audible  in  the  hedge,  and  he  beheld  emerging  from 
the  shrubbery  a  sort  of  tall,  slender  girl,  who  drew  herself 
up  in  front  of  him  and  stared  boldly  at  him.  She  had  less 
the  air  of  a  human  being  than  of  a  form  which  had  just  blos- 
somed forth  from  the  twilight. 

Before  Father  Mabeiif,  who  was  easily  terrified,  and  who 
was,  as  we  have  said,  quick  to  take  alarm,  was  able  to  reply  by 
a  single  syllable,  this  being,  whose  movements  had  a  sort  of 
odd  abruptness  in  the  darkness,  had  unhooked  the  chain, 
plunged  in  and  withdrawn  the  bucket,  and  filled  the  watering- 
pot,  and  the  goodman  beheld  this  apparition,  which  had  bare 
feet  and  a  tattered  petticoat,  running  about  among  the  flower- 
beds distributing  life  around  her.  The  sound  of  the 
watering-pot  on  the  leaves  filled  Father  Mabeuf's  soul  with 
ecstasy.  It  seemed  to  him  that  the  rhododendron  was  happy 
now. 

The  first  bucketful  emptied,  the  girl  drew  a  second,  then  a 
third.  She  watered  the  whole  garden. 

There  was  something  about  her,  as  she  thus  ran  about 
among  paths,  where  her  outline  appeared  perfectly  black, 
waving  her  angular  arms,  and  with  her  fichu  all  in  rags,  that 
resembled  a  bat. 

When  she  had  finished.  Father  Mabeuf  approached  her  with 
tears  in  his  eyes,  and  laid  his  hand  on  her  brow. 

"God  will  bless  you,"  said  he,  "you  are  an  angel  since  you 
take  care  of  the  flowers." 


60  SAI\T-DI:\IS 

"No."  she  replied.  "I  am  the  devil,  but  that's  all  the  same 
to  me." 

The  old  man  exclaimed,  without  either  waiting  for  or  hear- 
ing her  response: — 

"What  a  pity  that  I  am  so  unhappy  and  so  poor,  and  that  I 
can  do  nothing  for  you !" 

"You  can  do  something,"  said  she. 

"What?" 

"Tell  me  where  M.  Marius  lives." 

The  old  man  did  not  understand.  "What  Monsieur 
Marius  ?" 

He  raised  his  glassy  eyes  and  seemed  to  be  seeking  some- 
thing that  had  vanished. 

"A  young  man  who  used  to  come  here." 

In  the  meantime,  M.  Mabeuf  had  searched  his  memory. 

"Ah !  yes — "  he  exclaimed.  "I  know  what  you  mean.  Wait ! 
Monsieur  Marius — the  Baron  Marius  Pontmercy,  par  bleu  !  He 
lives, — or  rather,  he  no  longer  lives, — ah  well,  I  don't  know." 

As  he  spoke,  he  had  bent  over  to  train  a  branch  of  rhodo- 
dendron, and  he  continued  : — 

"Hold,  I  know  now.  He  very  often  passes  along  the  boule- 
vard, and  goes  in  the  direction  of  the  Glaciere,  Rue  Croule- 
barbe.  The  meadow  of  the  Lark.  Go  there.  It  is  not  hard 
to  meet  him." 

When  M.  Mabeuf  straightened  himself  up,  there  was  no 
longer  any  one  there ;  the  girl  had  disappeared. 

He  was  decidedly  terrified. 

"Really,"  he  thought,  "if  my  garden  had  not  been  watered, 
I  should  think  that  she  was  a  spirit." 

An  hour  later,  when  he  was  in  bed,  it  came  back  to  him,  and 
as  he  fell  asleep,  at  that  confused  moment  when  thought,  like 
that  fabulous  bird  which  changes  itself  into  a  fish  in  order  to 
cross  the  sea,  little  by  little  assumes  the  form  of  a  dream  in 
order  to  traverse  slumber,  he  said  to  himself  in  a  bewildered 
way: — 

"In  sooth,  that  greatly  resembles  what  Rubaudiere  narrates 
of  the  goblins.  Could  it  have  been  a  goblin  ?" 


EPONINE  Qi 

CHAPTER    IV 

AN   APPARITION   TO   MARIUS 

SOME  days  after  this  visit  of  a  "spirit"  to  Farmer  Mabeuf, 
one  morning, — it  was  on  a  Monday,  the  day  when  Marius 
borrowed  the  hundred-sou  piece  from  Courfeyrac  for  Thenar- 
dier — Marius  had  put  this  coin  in  his  pocket,  and  before 
carrying  it  to  the  clerk's  office,  he  had  gone  "to  take  a  little 
stroll,"  in  the  hope  that  this  would  make  him  work  on  his 
return.  It  was  always  thus,  however.  As  soon  as  he  rose,  he 
seated  himself  before  a  book  and  a  sheet  of  paper  in  order  to 
scribble  some  translation;  his  task  at  that  epoch  consisted  in 
turning  into  French  a  celebrated  quarrel  between  Germans, 
the  Gans  and  Savigny  controversy ;  he  took  Savigny,  he  took 
Gans,  read  four  lines,  tried  to  write  one,  could  not,  saw  a  star 
between  him  and  his  paper,  and  rose  from  his  chair,  saying: 
"I  shall  go  out.  That  will  put  me  in  spirits." 

And  off  he  went  to  the  Lark's  meadow. 

There  he  beheld  more  than  ever  the  star,  and  less  than  ever 
Savigny  and  Gans. 

He  returned  home,  tried  to  take  up  his  work  again,  and  did 
not  succeed;  there  was  no  means  of  re-knotting  a  single  one 
of  the  threads  which  were  broken  in  his  brain ;  then  he  said 
to  himself:  "I  will  not  go  out  to-morrow.  It  prevents  my 
working."  And  he  went  out  every  day. 

He  lived  in  the  Lark's  meadow  more  than  in  Courfeyrac's 
lodgings.  That  was  his  real  address:  Boulevard  de  la  Sante, 
at  the  seventh  tree  from  the  Rue  Croulebarbe. 

That  morning  he  had  quitted  the  seventh  tree  and  had 
seated  himself  on  the  parapet  of  the  River  des  Gobelins.  A 
cheerful  sunlight  penetrated  the  freshly  unfolded  and  lumi- 
nous leaves. 

He  was  dreaming  of  "Her."  And  his  meditation  turning 
to  a  reproach,  fell  back  upon  himself;  he  reflected  dolefully  on 
his  idleness,  his  paralysis  of  soul,  which  was  gaining  on  him, 


62  8A1XT-DEXI8 

and  of  that  night  which  was  growing  more  dense  every  mo- 
ment before  him,  to  such  a  point  that  he  no  longer  even  saw 
the  sun. 

Nevertheless,  athwart  this  painful  extrication  of  indistinct 
ideas  which  was  not  even  a  monologue,  so  feeble  had  action 
become  in  him,  and  he  had  no  longer  the  force  to  care  to 
despair,  athwart  this  melancholy  absorption,  sensations  from 
without  did  reach  him.  He  heard  behind  him,  beneath  him, 
on  both  banks  of  the  river,  the  laundresses  of  the  Gobelins 
beating  their  linen,  and  above  his  head,  the  birds  chattering 
and  singing  in  the  elm-trees.  On  the  one  hand,  the  sound  of 
liberty,  the  careless  happiness  of  the  leisure  which  has  wings; 
on  the  other,  the  sound  of  toil.  What  caused  him  to  meditate 
deeply,  and  almost  reflect,  were  two  cheerful  sounds. 

All  at  once,  in  the  midst  of  his  dejected  ecstasy,  he  heard  a 
familiar  voice  saying : — 

"Come!    Here  he  is!" 

He  raised  his  eyes,  and  recognized  that  wretched  child  who 
had  come  to  him  one  morning,  the  elder  of  the  Thenardier 
daughters,  fiponine;  he  knew  her  name  now.  Strange  to  say, 
she  had  grown  poorer  and  prettier,  two  steps  which  it  had  not 
seemed  within  her  power  to  take.  She  had  accomplished  a 
double  progress,  towards  the  light  and  towards  distress.  She 
was  barefooted  and  in  rags,  as  on  the  day  when  she  had  so 
resolutely  entered  his  chamber,  only  her  rags  were  two  months 
older  now,  the  holes  were  larger,  the  tatters  more  sordid.  It 
was  the  same  harsh  voice,  the  same  brow  dimmed  and  wrink- 
led with  tan,  the  same  free,  wild,  and  vacillating  glance.  She 
had  besides,  more  than  formerly,  in  her  face  that  indescribably 
terrified  and  lamentable  something  which  sojourn  in  a  prison 
adds  to  wretchedness. 

She  had  bits  of  straw  and  hay  in  her  hair,  not  like  Ophelia 
through  having  gone  mad  from  the  contagion  of  Hamlet's 
madness,  but  because  she  had  slept  in  the  loft  of  some 
stable. 

And  in  spite  of  it  all,  she  was  beautiful.  What  a  star  art 
thou,  0  youth ! 


&PON1NE  (53 

In  the  meantime,  she  had  halted  in  front  of  Marius  with  a 
trace  of  joy  in  her  livid  countenance,  and  something  which 
resembled  a  smile. 

She  stood  for  several  moments  as  though  incapable  of 
speech. 

"So  I  have  met  you  at  last !"  she  said  at  length.  "Father 
Mabeuf  was  right,  it  was  on  this  boulevard !  How  I  have 
hunted  for  you  !  If  you  only  knew  !  Do  you  know  ?  I  have 
been  in  the  jug.  A  fortnight !  They  let  me  out !  seeing  that 
there  was  nothing  against  me,  and  that,  moreover,  I  had  not 
reached  years  of  discretion.  I  lack  two  months  of  it.  Oh  ! 
how  I  have  hunted  for  you  !  These  six  weeks !  So  you  don't 
live  down  there  any  more  ?" 

"No,"  said  Marius. 

"Ah !  I  understand.  Because  of  that  affair.  Those  take- 
downs are  disagreeable.  You  cleared  out.  Come  now  !  Why 
do  you  wear  old  hats  like  this !  A  young  man  like  you  ought 
to  have  fine  clothes.  Do  you  know,  Monsieur  Marius,  Father 
Mabeuf  calls  you  Baron  Marius,  I  don't  know  what.  It  isn't 
true  that  you  are  a  baron?  Barons  are  old  fellows,  they  go 
to  the  Luxembourg,  in  front  of  the  chateau,  where  there  is 
the  most  sun,  and  they  read  the  Quotidienne  for  a  sou.  I  once 
carried  a  letter  to  a  baron  of  that  sort.  He  was  over  a  hun- 
dred years  old.  Say,  where  do  you  live  now  ?" 

Marius  made  no  reply. 

"Ah !"  she  went  on,  "you  have  a  hole  in  your  shirt.  I  must 
sew  it  up  for  you." 

She  resumed  with  an  expression  which  gradually  clouded 
over : — 

"You  don't  seem  glad  to  see  me." 

Marius  held  his  peace;  she  remained  silent  for  a  moment, 
then  exclaimed : — 

"But  if  I  choose,  nevertheless,  I  could  force  you  to  look 
glad !" 

"What?"  demanded  Marius.    "What  do  you  mean?" 

"Ah !  you  used  to  call  me  i/tou,"  she  retorted. 

"Well,  then,  what  dost  thou  me&ii  ?" 


64  SAINT-DENIS 

She  bit  her  lips ;  she  seemed  to  hesitate,  as  though  a  prey  to 
some  sort  of  inward  conflict.  At  last  she  appeared  to  come  to 
a  decision. 

"So  much  the  worse,  I  don't  care.  You  have  a  melancholy 
air,  I  want  you  to  be  pleased.  Only  promise  me  that  you  will 
smile.  I  want  to  see  you  smile  and  hear  you  say:  'Ah,  well, 
that's  good.'  Poor  Mr.  Marius!  you  know?  You  promised 
me  that  you  would  give  me  anything  1  liked — 

"Yes !     Only  speak  !" 

She  looked  Marius  full  in  the  eye,  and  said : — 

"I  have  the  address." 

Marius  turned  pale.  All  the  blood  flowed  back  to  his 
heart. 

"What  address?" 

"The  address  that  you  asked  me  to  get !" 

She  added,  as  though  with  an  effort : — 

"The  address — you  know  very  well !" 

"Yes!"  stammered  Marius. 

"Of  that  young  lady." 

This  word  uttered,  she  sighed  deeply. 

Marius  sprang  from  the  parapet  on  which  he  had  been  sit- 
ting and  seized  her  hand  distractedly. 

"Oh  !  Well !  lead  me  thither !  Tell  me  !  Ask  of  me  any- 
thing you  wish  !  Where  is  it  ?" 

"Come  with  me,"  she  responded.  "I  don't  know  the  street 
or  number  very  well ;  it  is  in  quite  the  other  direction  from 
here,  but  I  know  the  house  well,  I  will  take  you  to  it." 

She  withdrew  her  hand  and  went  on,  in  a  tone  which  could 
have  rent  the  heart  of  an  observer,  but  which  did  not  even 
graze  Marius  in  his  intoxicated  and  ecstatic  state : — 

"Oh  !  how  glad  you  are !" 

A  cloud  swept  across  Marius'  brow.  He  seized  fiponine 
by  the  arm  : — 

"Swear  one  thing  to  me !" 

"Swear!"  said  she,  "what  does  that  mean?  Come!  You 
want  me  to  swear?" 

And  she  laughed. 


&PONINE  ^5 

"Your  father !  promise  me,  fiponine !  Swear  to  rne  that 
you  will  not  give  this  address  to  your  father!" 

She  turned  to  him  with  a  stupefied  air. 

"fiponine !  I  low  do  you  know  that  my  name  is  fiponine?" 

"Promise  what  I  tell  you !" 

But  she  did  not  seem  to  hear  him. 

"That's  nice !    You  have  called  me  fiponine !" 

Marius  grasped  both  her  arms  at  once. 

"But  answer  me,  in  the  name  of  Heaven !  pay  attention  to 
what  I  am  saying  to  you,  swear  to  me  that  you  will  not  tell 
your  father  this  address  that  you  know !" 

"My  father !"  said  she.  "Ah  yes,  my  father !  Be  at  ease. 
He's  in  close  confinement.  Besides,  what  do  I  care  for  my 
father !" 

"But  you  do  not  promise  me  !"  exclaimed  Marius. 

"Let  go  of  rne !"  she  said,  bursting  into  a  laugh,  "how  you 
do  shake  me!  Yes!  Yes!  I  promise  that!  I  swear  that  to 
you!  What  is  that  to  me?  I  will  not  toll  my  father  the  ad- 
dress. There!  Is  that  right?  Is  that  it?" 

"Nor  to  any  one  ?"  said  Marius. 

"Nor  to  any  one." 

"Now,"  resumed  Marius,  "take  me  there." 

"Immediately?" 

"Immediately." 

"Come  along.    Ah  !  how  pleased  he  is !"  said  she. 

After  a  few  steps  she  halted. 

"You  are  following  me  too  closely,  Monsieur  Marius.  Let 
me  go  on  ahead,  and  follow  me  so,  without  seeming  to  do  it. 
A  nice  young  man  like  you  must  not  be  seen  with  a  woman 
like  me." 

No  tongue  can  express  all  that  lay  in  that  word,  woman, 
thus  pronounced  by  that  child. 

She  proceeded  a  do/on  paces  and  then  halted  once  more; 
Marius  joined  her.  She  addressed  him  sideways,  and  without 
turning  towards  him  : — 

"By  the  way,  you  know  that  you  promised  me  some- 
thing?" 


QQ  SAINT-DENIS 

Marius  fumbled  in  his  pocket.  All  that  he  owned  in  the 
world  was  the  five  francs  intended  for  Thenardier  the  father. 
He  took  them  and  laid  them  in  fiponine's  hand. 

She  opened  her  fingers  and  let  the  coin  fall  to  the  ground, 
and  gazed  at  him  with  a  gloomy  air. 

"I  don't  want  your  money,"  said  she. 


BOOK  THIRD.— THE  HOUSE  IN  THE  RUE  PLUMET 
CHAPTER  I 

THE   HOUSE    WITH    A    SECRET 

ABOUT  the  middle  of  the  last  century,  a  chief  justice  in 
the  Parliament  of  Paris  having  a  mistress  and  concealing  the 
fact,  for  at  that  period  the  grand  seignors  displayed  their  mis- 
tresses, and  the  bourgeois  concealed  them,  had  "a  little  house" 
built  in  the  Faubourg  Saint-Germain,  in  the  deserted  Rue 
Blomet,  which  is  now  called  Rue  Plumet,  not  far  from  the 
spot  which  was  then  designated  as  Combat  des  Animaux. 

This  house  was  composed  of  a  single-storied  pavilion;  two 
rooms  on  the  ground  floor,  two  chambers  on  the  first  floor,  a 
kitchen  down  stairs,  a  boudoir  up  stairs,  an  attic  under  the 
roof,  the  whole  preceded  by  a  garden  with  a  large  gate  open- 
ing on  the  street.  This  garden  was  about  an  acre  and  a  half 
in  extent.  This  was  all  that  could  be  seen  by  passers-by;  but 
behind  the  pavilion  there  was  a  narrow  courtyard,  and  at  the 
end  of  the  courtyard  a  low  building  consisting  of  two  rooms 
and  a  cellar,  a  sort  of  preparation  destined  to  conceal  a  child 
and  nurse  in  case  of  need.  This  building  communicated  in 
the  rear  by  a  masked  door  which  opened  by  a  secret  spring, 
with  a  long,  narrow,  paved  winding  corridor,  open  to  the  sky, 
hemmed  in  with  two  lofty  walls,  which,  hidden  with  wonder- 
ful art,  and  lost  as  it  were  between  garden  enclosures  and 
cultivated  land,  all  of  whose  angles  and  detours  it  followed, 
ended  in  another  door,  also  with  a  secret  lock  which  opened 
a  quarter  of  a  league  away,  almost  in  another  quarter,  at  the 
solitary  extremity  of  the  Rue  du  Babylone. 

Through  this  the  chief  justice  entered,  so  that  even  those 


68  SAINT-DENIS 

who  were  spying  on  him  and  following  him  would  merely  have 
observed  that  the  justice  betook  himself  every  day  in  a  mys- 
terious way  somewhere,  and  would  never  have  suspected  that  to 
go  to  the  Rue  de  Babylone  was  to  go  to  the  Rue  Blomet. 
Thanks  to  clever  purchasers  of  land,  the  magistrate  had  been 
able  to  make  a  secret,  sewer-like  passage  on  his  own  property, 
and  consequently,  without  interference.  Later  on,  he  had  sold 
in  little  parcels,  for  gardens  and  market  gardens,  the  lots  of 
ground  adjoining  the  corridor,  and  the  proprietors  of  these 
lots  on  both  sides  thought  they  had  a  party  wall  before  their 
eyes,  and  did  not  even  suspect  the  long,  paved  ribbon  winding 
between  two  walls  amid  their  flower-beds  and  their  orchards. 
Only  the  birds  beheld  this  curiosity.  It  is  probable  that  the 
linnets  and  tomtits  of  the  last  century  gossiped  a  great  deal 
about  the  chief  justice. 

The  pavilion,  built  of  stone  in  the  taste  of  Mansard,  wains- 
coted and  furnished  in  the  Watteau  style,  rocaille  on  the  inside, 
old-fashioned  on  the  outside,  walled  in  with  a  triple  hedge  of 
flowers,  had  something  discreet,  coquettish,  and  solemn  about 
it,  as  befits  a  caprice  of  love  and  magistracy. 

This  house  and  corridor,  which  have  now  disappeared,  were 
in  existence  fifteen  years  ago.  In  '93  a  coppersmith  had  pur- 
chased the  house  with  the  idea  of  demolishing  it,  but  had  not 
been  able  to  pay  the  price ;  the  nation  made  him  bankrupt.  So 
that  it  was  the  house  which  demolished  the  coppersmith.  After 
that,  the  house  remained  uninhabited,  and  fell  slowly  to  ruin, 
as  does  every  dwelling  to  which  the  presence  of  man  does  not 
communicate  life.  It  had  remained  fitted  with  its  old  furni- 
ture, was  always  for  sale  or  to  let,  and  the  ten  or  a  dozen  people 
who  passed  through  the  Rue  Plumet  were  warned  of  the  fact 
by  a  yellow  and  illegible  bit  of  writing  which  had  hung  on  the 
garden  wall  since  1819. 

Towards  the  end  of  the  Restoration,  these  same  passers-by 
might  have  noticed  that  the  bill  had  disappeared,  and  even 
that  the  shutters  on  the  first  floor  were  open.  The  house  was 
occupied,  in  fact.  The  windows  had  short  curtains,  a  sign  that 
there  was  a  woman  about. 


THE  HOUSE  /TV  THE  RUE  PLUMET  (59 

In  the  month  of  October,  1829,  a  man  of  a  certain  age  had 
presented  himself  and  had  hired  the  house  just  as  it  stood, 
including,  of  course,  the  back  building  and  the  lane  which 
ended  in  the  Rue  dc  Babylone.  He  had  had  the  secret  open- 
ings of  the  two  doors  to  this  passage  repaired.  The  house,  as 
we  have  just  mentioned,  was  still  very  nearly  furnished  with 
the  justice's  old  fitting;  the  new  tenant  had  ordered  some 
repairs,  had  added  what  was  lacking  here  and  there,  had 
replaced  the  paving-stones  in  the  yard,  bricks  in  the  floors, 
steps  in  the  stairs,  missing  bits  in  the  inlaid  floors  and  t he- 
glass  in  the  lattice  windows,  and  had  finally  installed  himself 
there  with  a  young  girl  and  an  elderly  maid-servant,  without 
commotion,  rather  like  a  person  who  is  slipping  in  than  like 
a  man  who  is  entering  his  own  house.  The  neighbors  did  not 
gossip  about  him,  for  the  reason  that  there  were  no 
neighbors. 

This  unobtrusive  tenant  was  Jean  Valjean,  the  young  girl 
was  Cosette.  The  servant  was  a  woman  named  Toussaint. 
whom  Jean  Valjean  had  saved  from  the  hospital  and  from 
wretchedness,  and  who  was  elderly,  a  stammerer,  and  from  the 
provinces,  three  qualities  which  had  decided  Jean  Valjean  to 
take  her  with  him.  lie  had  hired  the  house  under  the  name 
of  M.  Fauchelevent.  independent  gentleman.  In  all  that  has 
been  related  heretofore,  the  reader  has,  doubtless,  been  no  less 
prompt  than  Thenardier  to  recognize  Jean  Valjean. 

Why  had  Jean  Valjean  quitted  the  convent  of  the  Petit- 
Picpus?  What  had  happened? 

Nothing  had  happened. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  Jean  Valjean  was  happy  in  the 
convent,  so  happy  that  his  conscience  finally  took  the  alarm. 
He  saw  Cosette  every  day,  he  felt  paternity  spring  up  and 
develop  within  him  more  and  more,  he  brooded  over  the  soul 
of  that  child,  he  said  to  himself  that  she  was  his,  that  nothing 
could  take  her  from  him,  that  this  would  last  indefinitely,  that 
she  would  certainly  become  a  nun,  being  thereto  gently  incited 
every  day,  that  thus  the  convent  was  henceforth  the  universe 
for  her  as  it  was  for  him,  that  he  should  grow  old  there,  and 


70  SAINT-DENIS 

that  she  would  grow  up  there,  that  she  would  grow  old  there, 
and  that  he  should  die  there ;  that,  in  short,  delightful  hope, 
no  separation  was  possible.  On  reflecting  upon  this,  he  fell 
into  perplexity.  He  interrogated  himself.  He  asked  himself 
if  all  that  happiness  were  really  his,  if  it  were  not  composed 
of  the  happiness  of  another,  of  the  happiness  of  that  child 
which  he,  an  old  man,  was  confiscating  and  stealing;  if  that 
were  not  theft?  He  said  to  himself,  that  this  child  had  a 
right  to  know  life  before  renouncing  it,  that  to  deprive  her 
in  advance,  and  in  some  sort  without  consulting  her,  of  all 
joys,  under  the  pretext  of  saving  her  from  all  trials,  to  take 
advantage  of  her  ignorance  of  her  isolation,  in  order  to  make 
an  artificial  vocation  germinate  in  her,  was  to  rob  a  human 
creature  of  its  nature  and  to  lie  to  God.  And  who  knows  if. 
when  she  came  to  be  aware  of  all  this  some  day,  and  found 
herself  a  nun  to  her  sorrow,  Cosette  would  not  come  to  hate 
him  ?  A  last,  almost  selfish  thought,  and  less  heroic  than  the 
rest,  but  which  was  intolerable  to  him.  He  resolved  to  quit 
the  convent. 

He  resolved  on  this;  he  recognized  with  anguish,  the  fact 
that  it  was  necessary.  As  for  objections,  there  were  none. 
Five  years'  sojourn  between  these  four  walls  and  of  disappear- 
ance had  necessarily  destroyed  or  dispersed  the  elements  of 
fear.  He  could  return  tranquilly  among  men.  He  had  grown 
old,  and  all  had  undergone  a  change.  Who  would  recognize 
him  now?  And  then,  to  face  the  worst,  there  was  danger 
only  for  himself,  and  he  had  no  right  to  condemn  Cosette 
to  the  cloister  for  the  reason  that  he  had  been  condemned  to 
the  galleys.  Besides,  what  is  danger  in  comparison  with  the 
right?  Finally,  nothing  prevented  his  being  prudent  and 
taking  his  precautions. 

As  for  Cosette's  education,  it  was  almost  finished  and 
complete. 

His  determination  once  taken,  he  awaited  an  opportunity. 
It  was  not  long  in  presenting  itself.  Old  Fauchelevent  died. 

Jean  Valjean  demanded  an  audience  with  the  revered 
prioress  and  told  her  that,  having  come  into  a  little  inheritance 


THE  flOUSE  IN  THE  RUE  PLVMET  7} 

at  the  death  of  his  brother,  which  permitted  him  henceforth 
to  live  without  working,  he  should  leave  the  service  of  the 
convent  and  take  his  daughter  with  him;  but  that,  as  it  was 
not  just  that  Cosette,  since  she  had  not  taken  the  vows,  should 
have  received  her  education  gratuitously,  he  humbly  begged 
the  Reverend  Prioress  to  see  fit  that  he  should  offer  to  the 
community,  as  indemnity,  for  the  five  years  which  Cosette 
had  spent  there,  the  sum  of  five  thousand  francs. 

It  was  thus  that  Jean  Valjean  quitted  the  convent  of  the 
Perpetual  Adoration. 

On  leaving  the  convent,  he  took  in  his  own  arms  the  little 
valise  the  key  to  which  he  still  wore  on  his  person,  and  would 
permit  no  porter  to  touch  it.  This  puzzled  Cosette,  because 
of  the  odor  of  embalming  which  proceeded  from  it. 

Let  us  state  at  once,  that  this  trunk  never  quitted  him  more. 
He  always  had  it  in  his  chamber.  It  was  the  first  and  only 
thing  sometimes,  that  he  carried  off  in  his  moving  when  he 
moved  about.  Cosette  laughed  at  it,  and  called  this  valise  his 
inseparable,  saying:  "I  am  jealous  of  it." 

Nevertheless,  Jean  Valjean  did  not  reappear  in  the  open  air 
without  profound  anxiety. 

He  discovered  the  house  in  the  Rue  Plumet,  and  hid  himself 
from  sight  there.  Henceforth  he  was  in  the  possession  of  the 
name : — Ultimo  Fauchelevent. 

At  the  same  time,  he  hired  two  other  apartments  in  Paris, 
in  order  that  he  might  attract  less  attention  than  if  he  were  to 
remain  always  in  the  same  quarter,  and  so  that  he  could,  at 
need,  take  himself  off  at  the  slightest  disquietude  which  should 
assail  him,  and  in  short,  so  that  he  might  not  again  be  caught 
unprovided  as  on  the  night  when  he  had  so  miraculously 
escaped  from  Javert.  These  two  apartments  were  very  piti- 
able, poor  in  appearance,  and  in  two  quarters  which  were  far 
remote  from  each  other,  the  one  in  the  Rue  de  1'Ouest,  the 
other  in  the  Rue  de  I'Homine  Arme. 

He  went  from  time  to  time,  now  to  the  Rue  de  I'Homme 
Arme,  now  to  the  Rue  dc  1'Ouest,  to  pass  a  month  or  six  weeks, 
without  taking  Toussaint.  He  had  himself  served  by  the 


72  8AIXT-DKXI8 

porters,  and  gave  himself  out  as  a  gentleman  from  the  sub- 
urbs, living  on  his  funds,  and  having  a  little  temporary  rest- 
ing-place in  town.  This  lofty  virtue  had  three  domiciles  in 
Paris  for  the  sake  of  escaping  from  the  police. 


CHAPTER    II 

JEAN  VALJEAN  AS  A  NATIONAL  GUARD 

HOWEVER,  properly  speaking,  he  lived  in  the  Rue  Plumet, 
and  he  had  arranged  his  existence  there  in  the  following 
fashion : — 

Cosette  and  the  servant  occupied  the  pavilion ;  she  had  the 
big  sleeping-room  with  the  painted  pier-glasses,  the  boudoir 
with  the  gilded  fillets,  the  justice's  drawing-room  furnished 
with  tapestries  and  vast  arm-chairs ;  she  had  the  garden.  Jean 
Valjean  had  a  canopied  bed  of  antique  damask  in  three  colors 
and  a  beautiful  Persian  rug  purchased  in  the  Rue  du  Figuier- 
Saint-Paul  at  Mother  Gaucher's,  put  into  Cosette's  chamber, 
and,  in  order  to  redeem  the  severity  of  these  magnificent  old 
things,  he  had  amalgamated  with  this  bric-a-brac  all  the  gay 
and  graceful  little  pieces  of  furniture  suitable  to  young  girls, 
an  etagere,  a  bookcase  filled  with  gilt-edged  books,  an  ink- 
stand, a  blotting-book,  paper,  a  work-table  incrusted  with 
mother  of  pearl,  a  silver-gilt  dressing-case,  a  toilet  service  in 
Japanese  porcelain.  Long  damask  curtains  with  a  red  foun- 
dation and  three  colors,  like  those  on  the  bed.  hung  at  the 
windows  of  the  first  floor.  On  the  groiind  floor,  the  curtains 
were  of  tapestry.  All  winter  long,  Cosette's  little  house  was 
heated  from  top  to  bottom.  Jean  Valjean  inhabited  the  sort 
of  porter's  lodge  which  was  situated  at  the  end  of  the  back 
courtyard,  with  a  mattress  on  a  folding-bed,  a  white  wood 
table,  two  straw  chairs,  an  earthenware  water-jug,  a  few  old 
volumes  on  a  shelf,  his  beloved  valise  in  one  corner,  and  never 
any  fire.  He  dined  with  Cosette,  and  he  had  a  loaf  of  black 
bread  on  the  table  for  his  own  use. 


THE  HOUSE  IN  THE  HUE  PLUMET          73 

When  Toussaint  came,  ho  had  said  to  her:  "It  is  the 
young  lady  who  is  the  mistress  of  this  house." — "And 
you.  monsieur?"  Toussaint  replied  in  amazement. - 
am  a  much  better  thing  than  the  master,  I  am 
father." 

Cosette  had  been  taught  housekeeping  in  the  convent,  and 
she  regulated  their  expenditure,  which  was  very  modest. 
Every  day,  Jean  Valjean  put  his  arm  through  Colette's  and 
took  her  for  a  walk.  He  led  her  to  the  Luxembourg,  to  the 
least  frequented  walk,  and  every  Sunday  he  took  her  to  mass 
at  Saint-Jacques-du-IIaut-Pas,  because  that  was  a  long  way 
off.  As  it  was  a  very  poor  quarter,  lie  bestowed  alms  largely 
there,  and  the  poor  people  surrounded  him  in  church,  which 
had  drawn  down  upon  him  Thenardicr's  epistle:  "To  the 
benevolent  gentleman  of  the  church  of  Saint-Jacques-du- 
Haut-Pas."  He  was  fond  of  taking  Cosette  to  visit  the  poor 
and  the  sick.  No  stranger  ever  entered  the  house  in  the  Hue 
Plumet.  Toussaint  brought  their  provisions,  and  Jean  Val- 
jean went  himself  for  water  to  a  fountain  near  by  on  the 
boulevard.  Their  wood  and  wine  were  put  into  a  half-sub- 
terranean hollow  lined  with  rock-work  which  lay  near  the 
Rue  de  Babylone  and  which  had  formerly  served  the  chief- 
justice  as  a  grotto;  for  at  the  epoch  of  follies  and  "Little 
Houses"  no  love  was  without  a  grotto. 

In  the  door  opening  on  the  Rue  de  Babylone,  there  was  a 
box  destined  for  the  reception  of  letters  and  papers ;  only,  as 
the  three  inhabitants  of  the  pavilion  in  the  Rue  Plumet 
received  neither  papers  nor  letters,  the  entire  usefulness  of 
that  box.  formerly  the  go-between  of  a  love  affair,  and  the 
confidant  of  a  love-lorn  lawyer,  was  now  limited  to  the  tax- 
collector's  notices,  and  the  summons  of  the  guard.  For 
M.  Fauchelevent,  independent  gentleman,  belonged  to  the 
national  guard ;  he  had  not  been  able  to  escape  through  the 
fine  meshes  of  the  census  of  1831.  The  municipal  information 
collected  at  that  time  had  even  reached  the  convent  of  the 
Petit-Picpus,  a  sort  of  impenetrable  and  holy  cloud,  whence 
Jean  Valjean  had  emerged  in  venerable  guise,  aiid,  conse- 


74  SAIXT-DEXIB 

quently,  worthy  of  mounting  guard  in  the  eyes  of  the  town- 
hall. 

Three  or  four  times  a  year,  Jean  Valjean  donned  his  uni- 
form and  mounted  guard;  he  did  this  willingly,  however;  it 
was  a  correct  disguise  which  mixed  him  with  every  one,  and 
yet  left  him  solitary.  Jean  Valjean  had  just  attained  his 
sixtieth  birthday,  the  age  of  legal  exemption ;  but  he  did  not 
appear  to  be  over  fifty ;  moreover,  he  had  no  desire  to  escape 
his  sergeant-major  nor  to  quibble  with  Comte  de  Lobau;  he 
possessed  no  civil  status,  he  was  concealing  his  name,  he  was 
concealing  his  identity,  so  he  concealed  his  age,  he  concealed 
everything;  and,  as  we  have  just  said,  he  willingly  did  his 
duty  as  a  national  guard;  the  sum  of  his  ambition  lay  in 
resembling  any  other  man  who  paid  his  taxes.  This  man  had 
for  his  ideal,  within,  the  angel,  without,  the  bourgeois. 

Let  us  note  one  detail,  however;  when  Jean  Valjean  went 
out  with  Cosette,  he  dressed  as  the  reader  has  already  seen, 
and  had  the  air  of  a  retired  officer.  When  he  went  out  alone, 
which  was  generally  at  night,  he  was  always  dressed  in  a  work- 
ingman's  trousers  and  blouse,  and  wore  a  cap  which  concealed 
his  face.  Was  this  precaution  or  humility?  Both.  Cosette 
was  accustomed  to  the  enigmatical  side  of  her  destiny,  and 
hardly  noticed  her  father's  peculiarities.  As  for  Toussaint, 
she  venerated  Jean  Valjean,  and  thought  everything  he  did 
right. 

One  day,  her  butcher,  who  had  caught  a  glimpse  of  Jean 
Valjean,  said  to  her:  "That's  a  queer  fish."  She  replied: 
"He's  a  saint." 

Neither  Jean  Valjean  nor  Cosette  nor  Toussaint  ever 
entered  or  emerged  except  by  the  door  on  the  Rue  de  Baby- 
lone.  Unless  seen  through  the  garden  gate  it  would  have  beon 
difficult  to  guess  that  they  lived  in  the  Rue  Plumet.  That 
gate  was  always  closed.  Jean  Valjean  had  left  the  garden 
uncultivated,  in  order  not  to  attract  attention. 

In  this,  possibly,  he  made  a  mistake. 


THE  HOUSE  IN  THE  RUE  PLUMET         75 

CHAPTER   III 

FOLKS  AC   FRONDIBD8 

THE  garden  thus  left  to  itself  for  more  than  half  a  century 
had  become  extraordinary  and  charming.  The  passers-by  of 
forty  years  ago  halted  to  gaze  at  it,  without  a  suspicion  of  the 
secrets  which  it  hid  in  its  fresh  and  verdant  depths.  More 
than  one  dreamer  of  that  epoch  often  allowed  his  thoughts  and 
his  eyes  to  penetrate  indiscreetly  between  the  bars  of  that 
ancient,  padlocked  gate,  twisted,  tottering,  fastened  to  two 
green  and  moss-covered  pillars,  and  oddly  crowned  with  a 
pediment  of  undecipherable  arabesque. 

There  was  a  stone  bench  in  one  corner,  one  or  two  mouldy 
statues,  several  lattices  which  had  lost  their  nails  with  time, 
were  rotting  on  the  wall,  and  there  were  no  walks  nor  turf; 
but  there  was  enough  grass  everywhere.  Gardening  had  taken 
its  departure,  and  nature  had  returned.  Weeds  abounded, 
which  was  a  great  piece  of  luck  for  a  poor  corner  of  land. 
The  festival  of  gilliflowers  was  something  splendid.  Nothing 
in  this  garden  obstructed  the  sacred  effort  of  things  towards 
life;  venerable  growth  reigned  there  among  them.  The  trees 
had  bent  over  towards  the  nettles,  the  plant  had  sprung 
upward,  the  branch  had  inclined,  that  which  crawls  on  the 
earth  had  gone  in  search  of  that  which  expands  in  the  air,  that 
which  floats  on  the  wind  had  bent  over  towards  that  which 
trails  in  the  moss;  trunks,  boughs,  leaves,  fibres,  clusters, 
tendrils,  shoots,  spines,  thorns,  had  mingled,  crossed,  married, 
confounded  themselves  in  each  other;  vegetation  in  a  deep 
and  close  embrace,  had  celebrated  and  accomplished  there, 
under  the  well-pleased  eye  of  the  Creator,  in  that  enclosure 
three  hundred  feet  square,  the  holy  mystery  of  fraternity, 
symbol  of  the  human  fraternity.  This  garden  was  no  longer 
a  garden,  it  was  a  colossal  thicket,  that  is  to  say,  something 
as  impenetrable  as  a  forest,  as  peopled  as  a  city,  quivering 


76  SAINT-DENIS 

like  a  nest,  sombre  like  a  cathedral,  fragrant  like  a  bouquet, 
solitary  as  a  tomb,  living  as  a  throng. 

In  Floreal1  this  enormous  thicket,  free  behind  its  gate  and 
within  its  four  walls,  entered  upon  the  secret  labor  of  germi- 
nation, quivered  in  the  rising  sun,  almost  like  an  animal  which 
drinks  in  the  breaths  of  cosmic  love,  and  which  feels  the  sap  of 
April  rising  and  boiling  in  its  veins,  and  shakes  to  the  wind 
its  enormous  wonderful  green  locks,  sprinkled  on  the  damp 
earth,  on  the  defaced  statues,  on  the  crumbling  steps  of  the 
pavilion,  and  even  on  the  pavement  of  the  deserted  street, 
flowers  like  stars,  dew  like  pearls,  fecundity,  beauty,  life,  joy, 
perfumes.  At  midday,  a  thousand  white  butterflies  took 
refuge  there,  and  it  was  a  divine  spectacle  to  see  that  living 
summer  snow  whirling  about  there  in  flakes  amid  the  shade. 
There,  in  those  gay  shadows  of  verdure,  a  throng  of  innocent 
voices  spoke  sweetly  to  the  soul,  and  what  the  twittering 
forgot  to  say  the  humming  completed.  In  the  evening,  a 
dreamy  vapor  exhaled  from  the  garden  and  enveloped  it;  a 
shroud  of  mist,  a  calm  and  celestial  sadness  covered  it;  the 
intoxicating  perfume  of  the  honeysuckles  and  convolvulus 
poured  out  from  every  part  of  it,  like  an  exquisite  and  subtle 
poison ;  the  last  appeals  of  the  woodpeckers  and  the  wagtails 
were  audible  as  they  dozed  among  the  branches;  one  felt  the 
sacred  intimacy  of  the  birds  and  the  trees ;  by  day  the  wings 
rejoice  the  leaves,  by  night  the  leaves  protect  the  wings. 

In  winter  the  thicket  was  black,  dripping,  bristling, 
shivering,  and  allowed  some  glimpse  of  the  house.  Instead 
of  flowers  on  the  branches  and  dew  in  the  flowers,  the  long 
silvery  tracks  of  the  snails  were  visible  on  the  cold,  thick  car- 
pet of  yellow  leaves;  but  in  any  fashion,  under  any  aspect,  at 
all  seasons,  spring,  winter,  summer,  autumn,  this  tiny  enclos- 
ure breathed  forth  melancholy,  contemplation,  solitude,  lib- 
erty, the  absence  of  man,  the  presence  of  God ;  and  the  rusty 
old  gate  had  the  air  of  saying:  "This  garden  belongs  to  me." 

It  was  of  no  avail  that  the  pavements  of  Paris  were  there 
on  every  side,  the  classic  and  splendid  hotels  of  the  Hue  de 
'From  April  19  to  May  20. 


THE  HOUSE  IN  THE  RUE  PLUMET  77 

Varennes  a  couple  of  paces  away,  the  dome  of  the  Invalides 
close  at  hand,  the  Chamber  of  Deputies  not  far  off;  the  car- 
riages of  the  Rue  de  Bourgogne  and  of  the  Rue  Saint- Domin- 
ique rumbled  luxuriously,  in  vain,  in  the  vicinity,  in  vain  did 
the  yellow,  brown,  white,  and  red  omnibuses  cross  each  other's 
course  at  the  neighboring  cross-roads;  the  Rue  Plumet  was  the 
desert;  and  the  death  of  the  former  proprietors,  the  revolution 
which  had  passed  over  it,  the  crumbling  away  of  ancient  for- 
tunes, absence,  forgetfulness,  forty  years  of  abandonment  and 
widowhood,  had  sufficed  to  restore  to  this  privileged  spot  ferns, 
mulleins,  hemlock,  yarrow,  tall  weeds,  great  crimped  plants, 
with  large  leaves  of  pale  green  clotb,  lizards,  beetles,  uneasy 
and  rapid  insects;  to  cause  to  spring  forth  from  the  depths  of 
the  earth  and  to  reappear  between  those  four  walls  a  certain 
indescribable  and  savage  grandeur;  and  for  nature,  which  dis- 
concerts the  petty  arrangements  of  man,  and  which  sheds  her- 
self always  thoroughly  where  she  diffuses  herself  at  all,  in  the 
ant  as  well  as  in  the  eagle,  to  blossom  out  in  a  petty  little 
Parisian  garden  with  as  much  rude  force  and  majesty  as  in  a 
virgin  forest  of  the  New  World. 

Nothing  is  small,  in  fact;  any  one  who  is  subject  to  the 
profound  and  penetrating  influence  of  nature  knows  this. 
Although  no  absolute  satisfaction  is  given  to  philosophy,  either 
to  circumscribe  the  cause  or  to  limit  the  effect,  the  contem- 
plator  falls  into  those  unfathomable  ecstasies  caused  by  these 
decompositions  of  force  terminating  in  unity.  Everything 
toils  at  everything. 

Algebra  is  applied  to  the  clouds;  the  radiation  of  the  star 
profits  the  rose;  no  thinker  would  venture  to  affirm  that  the 
perfume  of  the  hawthorn  is  useless  to  the  constellations.  Who, 
then,  can  calculate  the  course  of  a  molecule?  How  do  we 
know  that  the  creation  of  worlds  is  not  determined  by  the  fall 
of  grains  of  sand?  Who  knows  the  reciprocal  ebb  and  flow 
of  the  infinitely  great  and  the  infinitely  little,  the  reverber- 
ations of  causes  in  the  precipices  of  being,  and  the  avalanches 
of  creation?  The  tiniest  worm  is  of  importance;  the  great  is 
little,  the  little  is  great;  everything  is  balanced  in  necessity; 


78  8A1ST-DEMS 

alarming  vision  for  the  mind.  There  are  marvellous  relations 
between  beings  and  things ;  in  that  inexhaustible  whole,  from 
the  sun  to  the  grub,  nothing  despises  the  other ;  all  have  need 
of  each  other.  The  light  does  not  bear  away  terrestrial  per- 
fumes into  the  azure  depths,  without  knowing  what  it  is 
doing;  the  night  distributes  stellar  essences  to  the  sleeping 
flowers.  All  birds  that  fly  have  round  their  leg  the  thread 
of  the  infinite.  Germination  is  complicated  with  the  bursting 
forth  of  a  meteor  and  with  the  peck  of  a  swallow  cracking  its 
egg,  and  it  places  on  one  level  the  birth  of  an  earthworm  and 
the  advent  of  Socrates.  Where  the  telescope  ends,  the  micro- 
scope begins.  Which  of  the  two  possesses  the  larger  field  of 
vision?  Choose.  A  bit  of  mould  is  a  pleiad  of  flowers;  a 
nebula  is  an  ant-hill  of  stars.  The  same  promiscuousness, 
and  yet  more  unprecedented,  exists  between  the  things  of  the 
intelligence  and  the  facts  of  substance.  Elements  and  prin- 
ciples mingle,  combine,  wed,  multiply  with  each  other,  to  such 
a  point  that  the  material  and  the  moral  world  are  brought 
eventually  to  the  same  clearness.  The  phenomenon  is  perpet- 
ually returning  upon  itself.  In  the  vast  cosmic  exchanges 
the  universal  life  goes  and  comes  in  unknown  quantities, 
rolling  entirely  in  the  invisible  mystery  of  effluvia,  employing 
everything,  not  losing  a  single  dream,  not  a  single  slumber, 
sowing  an  animalcule  here,  crumbling  to  bits  a  planet  there, 
oscillating  and  winding,  making  of  light  a  force  and  of 
thought  an  element,  disseminated  and  invisible,  dissolving  all, 
except  that  geometrical  point,  the  /;  bringing  everything  back 
to  the  soul-atom ;  expanding  everything  in  God,  entangling  all 
activity,  from  summit  to  base,  in  the  obscurity  of  a  dizzy 
mechanism,  attaching  the  flight  of  an  insect  to  the  movement 
of  the  earth,  subordinating,  who  knows?  Were  it  only  by 
the  identity  of  the  law,  the  evolution  of  the  comet  in  the 
firmament  to  the  whirling  of  the  infusoria  in  the  drop  of 
water.  A  machine  made  of  mind.  Enormous  gearing,  the 
prime  motor  of  which  is  the  gnat,  and  whose  final  wheel  is  the 
zodiac. 


THE  HOUSE  IN  THE  RUE  PLUMET  79 

CHAPTER  IV 

CHANGE  OF  GATE 

IT  seemed  that  this  garden,  created  in  olden  days  to  conceal 
wanton  mysteries,  had  been  transformed  and  become  fitted  to 
shelter  chaste  mysteries.  There  were  no  longer  either  arbors, 
or  bowling  greens,  or  tunnels,  or  grottos;  there  was  a  mag- 
nificent, dishevelled  obscurity  falling  like  a  veil  over  all.  Pa- 
phos  had  been  made  over  into  Eden.  It  is  impossible  to  say 
what  element  of  repentance  had  rendered  this  retreat  whole- 
some. This  flower-girl  now  offered  her  blossom  to  the  soul. 
This  coquettish  garden,  formerly  decidedly  compromised,  had 
returned  to  virginity  and  modesty.  A  justice  assisted  by  a  gar- 
dener, a  goodman  who  thought  that  he  was  a  continuation  of 
Lamoignon,  and  another  goodman  who  thought  that  he  was  a 
continuation  of  Lenotre,  had  turned  it  about,  cut,  ruffled, 
decked,  moulded  it  to  gallantry;  nature  had  taken  possession 
of  it  once  more,  had  filled  it  with  shade,  and  had  arranged  it 
for  love. 

There  was,  also,  in  this  solitude,  a  heart  which  was  quite 
ready.  Love  had  only  to  show  himself;  he  had  here  a  temple 
composed  of  verdure,  grass,  moss,  the  sight  of  birds,  tender 
shadows,  agitated  branches,  and  a  soul  made  of  sweetness,  of 
faith,  of  candor,  of  hope,  of  aspiration,  and  of  illusion. 

Cosette  had  left  the  convent  when  she  was  still  almost  a 
child;  she  was  a  little  more  than  fourteen,  and  she  was  at  the 
"ungrateful  age";  we  have  already  said,  that  with  the  excep- 
tion of  her  eyes,  she  was  homely  rather  than  pretty ;  she  had 
no  ungraceful  feature,  but  she  was  awkward,  thin,  timid  and 
bold  at  once,  a  grown-up  little  girl,  in  short. 

Her  education  was  finished,  that  is  to  say,  she  has  been 
taught  religion,  and  even  and  above  all,  devotion ;  then  "his- 
tory," that  is  to  say  the  thing  that  bears  that  name  in 
convents,  geography,  grammar,  the  participles,  the  kings  of 
France,  a  little  music,  a  little  drawing,  etc. ;  but  in  all  other 


£0  8 Al XT  DEN  18 

respects  she  was  utterly  ignorant,  which  is  a  great  charm  and 
a  great  peril.  The  soul  of  a  young  girl  should  not  be  left  in 
the  dark;  later  on,  mirages  that  are  too  ahrupt  and  too  lively 
are  formed  there,  as  in  a  dark  chamber.  She  shoald  be  gently 
and  discreetly  enlightened,  rather  with  the  reflection  of  reali- 
ties than  with  their  harsh  and  direct  light.  A  useful  and  gra- 
ciously austere  half-light  which  dissipates  puerile  fears  and 
obviates  falls.  There  is  nothing  but  the  maternal  instinct, 
that  admirable  intuition  composed  of  the  memories  of  the  vir- 
gin and  the  experience  of  the  woman,  which  knows  how  this 
half-light  is  to  be  created  and  of  what  it  should  consist. 

Nothing  supplies  the  place  of  this  instinct.  All  the  nuns 
in  the  world  are  not  worth  as  much  as  one  mother  in  the  for- 
mation of  a  young  girl's  soul. 

Cosette  had  had  no  mother.  She  had  only  had  many  moth- 
ers, in  the  plural. 

As  for  Jean  Valjean,  he  was,  indeed,  all  tenderness,  all  so- 
licitude; but  he  was  only  an  old  man  and  he  knew  nothing 
at  all. 

Now,  in  this  work  of  education,  in  this  grave  matter  of 
preparing  a  woman  for  life,  what  science  is  required  to  com- 
bat that  vast  ignorance  which  is  called  innocence! 

Nothing  prepares  a  young  girl  for  passions  like  the  con- 
vent. The  convent  turns  the  thoughts  in  the  direction  of  the 
unknown.  The  heart,  thus  thrown  back  upon  itself,  works 
downward  within  itself,  since  it  cannot  overflow,  and  grows 
deep,  since  it  cannot  expand.  Hence  visions,  suppositions, 
conjectures,  outlines  of  romances,  a  desire  for  adventures,  fan- 
tastic constructions,  edifices  built  wholly  in  the  inner  obscu- 
rity of  the  mind,  sombre  and  secret  abodes  where  the  passions 
immediately  find  a  lodgement  as  soon  as  the  open  gate  per- 
mits them  to  enter.  The  convent  is  a  compression  which,  in 
order  to  triumph  over  the  human  heart,  should  last  during  the 
whole  life. 

On  quitting  the  convent,  Cosette  could  have  found  nothing 
more  sweet  and  more  dangerous  than  the  house  in  the  Rue 
Plumet.  It  was  the  continuation  of  solitude  with  the  begin- 


THE  HOUSE  IN   THE  RUE  1'LLUET  Q\ 

ning  of  liberty;  a  garden  that  was  closed,  but  a  nature  that 
was  acrid,  rich,  voluptuous,  and  fragrant;  the  same  dreams 
as  in  the  convent,  but  with  glimpses  of  young  men;  a  grating, 
but  one  that  opened  on  the  street. 

Still,  when  she  arrived  there,  we  repeat,  she  was  only  a 
child.  Jean  Valjean  gave  this  neglected  garden  over  to  her. 
"Do  what  you  like  with  it,"  he  said  to  her.  This  amused 
Cosette;  she  turned  over  all  the  clumps  and  all  the  stones,  she 
hunted  for  "beasts";  she  played  in  it,  while  awaiting  the  time 
when  she  would 'dream  in  it;  she  loved  this  garden  for  the  in- 
sects that  she  found  beneath  her  feet  amid  the  grass,  while 
awaiting  the  day  when  she  would  love  it  for  the  stars  that  she 
would  see  through  the  boughs  above  her  head. 

And  then,  she  loved  her  father,  that  is  to  say,  .Jean  Valjean, 
with  all  her  soul,  with  an  innocent  filial  passion  which  made 
the  goodman  a  beloved  and  charming  companion  to  her.  It 
will  be  remembered  that  M.  Madeleine  had  been  in  the  habit  of 
reading  a  great  deal.  Jean  Valjean  had  continued  this  prac- 
tice; he  had  come  to  converse  well;  he  possessed  the  secret 
riches  and  the  eloquence  of  a  true  and  humble  mind  which  has 
spontaneously  cultivated  itself.  He  retained  just  enough 
sharpness  to  season  his  kindness;  his  mind  was  rough  and  his 
heart  was  soft.  During  their  conversations  in  the  Luxem- 
bourg, he  gave  her  explanations  of  everything,  drawing  on 
what  he  had  read,  and  also  on  what  he  had  suffered.  As  she 
listened  to  him,  Cosette's  eyes  wandered  vaguely  about. 

This  simple  man  sufficed  for  Cosette's  thought,  the  same 
as  the  wild  garden  sufficed  for  her  eyes.  When  she  had 
had  a  good  chase  after  the  butterflies,  she  came  panting 
up  to  him  and  said:  "Ah!  How  I  have  run!"  He  kissed  her 
brow. 

Cosette  adored  the  goodman.  She  was  always  at  his  heels. 
Where  Jean  Valjean  was,  there  happiness  was.  Jean  Valjean 
lived  neither  in  the  pavilion  nor  the  garden;  she  took 
greater  pleasure  in  the  paved  back  courtyard,  than  in  the  en- 
closure filled  with  flowers,  and  in  his  little  lodge  furnished 
with  straw-seated  chairs  than  in  the  great  drawing-room  hung 


82 

with  tapestry,  against  which  stood  tufted  easy-chairs.  Jean 
Valjean  sometimes  said  to  her,  smiling  at  his  happiness  in 
being  importuned :  "Do  go  to  your  own  quarters !  Leave  me 
alone  a  little !" 

She  gave  him  those  charming  and  tender  scoldings  which 
are  so  graceful  when  they  come  from  a  daughter  to  her 
father. 

"Father,  I  am  very  cold  in  your  rooms ;  why  don't  you  have 
a  carpet  here  and  a  stove?" 

"Dear  child,  there  are  so  many  people  who  are  better  than 
I  and  who  have  not  even  a  roof  over  their  heads." 

"Then  why  is  there  a  fire  in  my  rooms,  and  everything  that 
is  needed  ?" 

"Because  you  are  a  woman  and  a  child." 

"Bah !  must  men  be  cold  and  feel  uncomfortable  ?" 

"Certain  men." 

"That  is  good,  I  shall  come  here  so  often  that  you  will  be 
obliged  to  have  a  fire." 

And  again  she  said  to  him : — 

"Father,  why  do  you  eat  horrible  bread  like  that  ?" 

"Because,  my  daughter." 

"Well,  if  you  eat  it,  I  will  eat  it  too." 

Then,  in  order  to  prevent  Cosette  eating  black  bread,  Jean 
Valjean  ate  white  bread. 

Cosette  had  but  a  confused  recollection  of  her  childhood. 
She  prayed  morning  and  evening  for  her  mother  whom  she 
had  never  known.  The  Thenardiers  had  remained  with  her 
as  two  hideous  figures  in  a  dream.  She  remembered  that  she 
had  gone  "one  day,  at  night,"  to  fetch  water  in  a  forest.  She 
thought  that  it  had  been  very  far  from  Paris.  It  seemed  to  her 
that  she  had  begun  to  live  in  an  abyss,  and  that  it  was  Jean 
Valjean  who  had  rescued  her  from  it.  Her  childhood  pro- 
duced upon  her  the  effect  of  a  time  when  there  had  been  noth- 
ing around  her  but  millepeds,  spiders,  and  serpents.  When 
she  meditated  in  the  evening,  before  falling  asleep,  as  she 
had  not  a  very  clear  idea  that  she  was  Jean  Valjean's  daugh- 
ter, and  that  he  was  her  father,  she  fancied  that  the  soul  of  her 


THE  HOUSE  IN  THE  RUE  PLUMET  S3 

mother  had  passed  into  that  good  man  and  had  come  to  dwell 
near  her. 

When  he  was  seated,  she  leaned  her  cheek  against  his  white 
hair,  and  dropped  a  silent  tear,  saying  to  herself:  "Perhaps 
this  man  is  my  mother." 

Cosette,  although  this  is  a  strange  statement  to  make,  in 
the  profound  ignorance  of  a  girl  brought  up  in  a  convent, — 
maternity  being  also  absolutely  unintelligible  to  virginity, — 
had  ended  by  fancying  that  she  had  had  as  little  mother  as 
possible.  She  did  not  even  know  her  mother's  name.  When- 
ever she  asked  Jean  Valjean,  Jean  Valjean  remained  silent. 
If  she  repeated  her  question,  he  responded  with  a  smile.  Once 
she  insisted ;  the  smile  ended  in  a  tear. 

This  silence  on  the  part  of  Jean  Valjean  covered  Fantine 
with  darkness. 

Was  it  prudence?  Was  it  respect?  Was  it  a  fear  that  he 
should  deliver  this  name  to  the  hazards  of  another  memory 
than  his  own? 

So  long  as  Cosette  had  been  small,  Jean  Valjean  had  been 
willing  to  talk  to  her  of  her  mother ;  when  she  became  a  young 
girl,  it  was  impossible  for  him  to  do  so.  It  seemed  to  him 
that  he  no  longer  dared.  Was  it  because  of  Cosette?  Was  it 
because  of  Fantine?  He  felt  a  certain  religious  horror 
at  letting  that  shadow  enter  Cosette's  thought;  and  of 
placing  a  third  in  their  destiny.  The  more  sacred  this 
shade  was  to  him,  the  more  did  it  seem  that  it  was  to  be 
feared.  He  thought  of  Fantine,  and  felt  himself  overwhelmed 
with  silence. 

Through  the  darkness,  he  vaguely  perceived  something 
which  appeared  to  have  its  finger  on  its  lips.  Had  all  the 
modesty  which  had  been  in  Fantine,  and  which  had  violently 
quitted  her  during  her  lifetime,  returned  to  rest  upon  her  after 
her  death,  to  watch  in  indignation  over  the  peace  of  that  dead 
woman,  and  in  its  shyness,  to  keep  her  in  her  grave?  Was 
Jean  Valjean  unconsciously  submitting  to  the  pressure?  We 
who  believe  in  death,  are  not  among  the  number  who  will  re- 
ject this  mysterious  explanation. 


84  SAINT-DENIS 

Hence  the  impossibility  of  uttering,  even  for  Cosette,  that 
name  of  Fantine. 

One  day  Cosette  said  to  him : — 

"Father,  I  saw  my  mother  in  a  dream  last  night.  She  had 
two  big  wings.  My  mother  must  have  been  almost  a  saint 
during  her  life." 

"Through  martyrdom,"  replied  Jean  Valjean. 

However,  Jean  Valjean  was  happy. 

When  Cosette  went  out  with  him,  she  leaned  on  his  arm, 
proud  and  happy,  in  the  plenitude  of  her  heart.  Jean  Valjean 
felt  his  heart  melt  within  him  with  delight,  at  all  these  sparks 
of  a  tenderness  so  exclusive,  so  wholly  satisfied  with  himself 
alone.  The  poor  man  trembled,  inundated  with  angelic  joy ; 
he  declared  to  himself  ecstatically  that  this  would  last  all  their 
lives;  he  told  himself  that  he  really  had  not  suffered  suffi- 
ciently to  merit  so  radiant  a  bliss,  and  he  thanked  God,  in  the 
depths  of  his  soul,  for  having  permitted  him  to  be  loved  thus, 
he,  a  wretch,  by  that  innocent  being. 

CHAPTER   V 

THE  ROSE  PERCEIVES  THAT  IT  IS  AN  ENGINE  OF  WAR 

ONE  day,  Cosette  chanced  to  look  at  herself  in  her  mirroc, 
and  she  said  to  herself :  "Really !"  It  seemed  to  her  almost 
that  she  was  pretty.  This  threw  her  in  a  singularly  troubled 
state  of  mind.  Up  to  that  moment  she  had  never  thought  of 
her  face.  She  saw  herself  in  her  mirror,  but  she  did  not  look 
at  herself.  And  then,  she  had  so  often  been  told  that  she  was 
homely ;  Jean  Valjean  alone  said  gently :  "No  indeed  !  no 
indeed !"  At  all  events,  Cosette  had  always  thought  herself 
homely,  and  had  grown  up  in  that  belief  with  the  easy  resigna- 
tion of  childhood.  And  here,  all  at  once,  was  her  mirror  say- 
ing to  her,  as  Jean  Valjean  had  said:  "No  indeed!"  That 
night,  she  did  not  sleep.  "What  if  I  were  pretty !"  she 
thought.  "How  odd  it  would  be  if  I  were  pretty !"  And  she 
recalled  those  of  her  companions  whose  beauty  had  produced 


THE  HOUSE  IN  THE  RUE  I'LUMET  $5 

a  sensation  in  the  convent,  and  she  said  to  herself :  "What ! 
Am  I  to  be  like  Mademoiselle  So-and-So?" 

The  next  morning  she  looked  at  herself  again,  not  by  acci- 
dent this  time,  and  she  was  assailed  with  doubts:  "Where 
did  I  get  such  an  idea?"  said  she;  "no.  I  am  ugly."  She  had 
not  slept  well,  that  was  all,  her  eyes  were  sunken  and  she  wa-; 
pale.  She  had  not  felt  very  joyous  on  the  preceding  evening 
in  the  belief  that  she  was  beautiful,  but  it  made  her  very  sad 
not  to  be  able  to  believe  in  it  any  longer.  She  did  not  look  at 
herself  again,  and  for  more  than  a  fortnight  she  tried  to  dress 
her  hair  with  her  back  turned  to  the  mirror. 

In  the  evening,  after  dinner,  she  generally  embroidered  in 
wool  or  did  some  convent  needlework  in  the  drawing-room, 
and  Jean  Valjean  read  beside  her.  Once  she  raised  her  eyes 
from  her  work,  and  was  rendered  quite  uneasy  by  the  manner 
in  which  her  father  was  gazing  at  her. 

On  another  occasion,  she  was  passing  along  the  street,  and 
it  seemed  to  her  that  some  one  behind  her,  whom  she  did  not 
see,  said:  "A  pretty  woman!  but  badly  dressed."  "Bah!" 
she  thought,  "he  does  not  mean  me.  I  am  well  dressed  and 
ugly."  She  was  then  wearing  a  plush  hat  and  her  merino 
gown. 

At  last,  one  day  when  she  was  in  the  garden,  she  heard  poor 
old  Toussaint  saying:  "Do  you  notice  how  pretty  Cosette  is 
growing,  sir?"  Cosette  did  not  hear  her  father's  reply,  but 
Toussaint's  words  caused  a  sort  of  commotion  within  her. 
She  fled  from  the  garden,  ran  up  to  her  room,  flew  to  the 
looking-glass, — it  was  three  months  since  she  had  looked  at 
herself, — and  gave  vent  to  a  cry.  She  had  just  dazzled  herself. 

She  was  beautiful  and  lovely;  she  could  not  help  agreeing 
with  Toussaint  and  her  mirror.  Her  figure  was  formed,  her 
skin  had  grown  white,  her  hair  was  lustrous,  an  unaccus- 
tomed splendor  had  been  lighted  in  her  blue  eyes.  The  con- 
sciousness of  her  beauty  burst  upon  her  in  an  instant,  like  the 
sudden  advent  of  daylight;  other  people  noticed  it  also.  Tous- 
saint had  said  so.  it  was  evidently  she  of  whom  the  passer-by 
had  spoken,  there  could  no  longer  be  any  doubt  of  that;  she 


86  SAINT-DENIS 

descended  to  the  garden  again,  thinking  herself  a  queen, 
imagining  that  she  heard  the  birds  singing,  though  it  was 
winter,  seeing  the  sky  gilded,  the  sun  among  the  trees,  flowers 
in  the  thickets,  distracted,  wild,  in  inexpressible  delight. 

Jean  Valjean,  on  his  side,  experienced  a  deep  and 
undefinable  oppression  at  heart. 

In  fact,  he  had,  for  some  time  past,  been  contemplating 
with  terror  that  beauty  which  seemed  to  grow  more  radiant 
every  day  on  Cosette's  sweet  face.  The  dawn  that  was  smiling 
for  all  was  gloomy  for  him. 

Cosette  had  been  beautiful  for  a  tolerably  long  time  before 
she  became  aware  of  it  herself.  But,  from  the  very  first  day, 
that  unexpected  light  which  was  rising  slowly  and  enveloping 
the  whole  of  the  young  girl's  person,  wounded  Jean  Valjean's 
sombre  eye.  He  felt  that  it  was  a  change  in  a  happy  life,  a 
life  so  happy  that  he  did  not  dare  to  move  for  fear  of  disar- 
ranging something.  This  man,  who  had  passed  through  all 
manner  of  distresses,  who  was  still  all  bleeding  from  the 
bruises  of  fate,  who  had  been  almost  wicked  and  who  had 
become  almost  a  saint,  who,  after  having  dragged  the  chain 
of  the  galleys,  was  now  dragging  the  invisible  but  heavy  chain 
of  indefinite  misery,  this  man  whom  the  law  had  not  released 
from  its  grasp  and  who  could  be  seized  at  any  moment  and 
brought  back  from  the  obscurity  of  his  virtue  to  the  broad 
daylight  of  public  opprobrium,  this  man  accepted  all,  excused 
all,  pardoned  all,  and  merely  asked  of  Providence,  of  man,  of 
the  law,  of  society,  of  nature,  of  the  world,  one  thing,  that 
Cosette  might  love  him ! 

That  Cosette  might  continue  to  love  him  !  That  God  would 
not  prevent  the  heart  of  the  child  from  coming  to  him,  and 
from  remaining  with  him  !  Beloved  by  Cosette.  he  felt  that  he 
was  healed,  rested,  appeased,  loaded  with  benefits,  recom- 
pensed, crowned.  Beloved  by  Cosette,  it  was  well  with  him ! 
He  asked  nothing  more !  Had  any  one  said  to  him :  "Do  you 
want  anything  better?"  he  would  have  answered :  "No."  God 
might  have  said  to  him:  "Do  you  desire  heaven?"  and  he 
would  have  replied:  "I  should  lose  by  it." 


THE  HOUSE  IN  THE  RUE  PLUMET          87 

Everything  which  could  affect  this  situation,  if  only  on  the 
surface,  made  him  shudder  like  the  beginning  of  something 
new.  He  had  never  known  very  distinctly  himself  what  the 
beauty  of  a  woman  means;  but  he  understood,  instinctively, 
that  it  was  something  terrible. 

He  gazed  with  terror  on  this  beauty,  which  was  blossoming 
out  ever  more  triumphant  and  superb  beside  him,  beneath  his 
very  eyes,  on  the  innocent  and  formidable  brow  of  that  child, 
from  the  depths  of  her  homeliness,  of  his  old  age,  of  his 
misery,  of  his  reprobation. 

He  said  to  himself :  "How  beautiful  she  is  !  What  is  to  be- 
come of  me?" 

There,  moreover,  lay  the  difference  between  his  tenderness 
and  the  tenderness  of  a  mother.  What  he  beheld  with  anguish, 
a  mother  would  have  gazed  upon  with  joy. 

The  first  symptoms  were  not  long  in  making  their  appear- 
ance. 

On  the  very  morrow  of  the  day  on  which  she  had  said  to  her- 
self :  "Decidedly  I  am  beautiful !"  Cosette  began  to  pay  atten- 
tion to  her  toilet.  She  recalled  the  remark  of  thakpasser-by : 
"Pretty,  but  badly  dressed."  the  breath  of  an  oracle  which  had 
passed  beside  her  and  had  vanished,  after  depositing  in  her 
heart  one  of  the  two  germs  which  are  destined,  later  on,  to  fill 
the  whole  life  of  woman,  coquetry.  Love  is  the  other. 

With  faith  in  her  beauty,  the  whole  feminine  soul  expanded 
within  her.  She  conceived  a  horror  for  her  merinos,  and 
shame  for  her  plush  hat.  Her  father  had  never  refused  her 
anything.  She  at  once  acquired  the  whole  science  of  the 
bonnet,  the  gown,  the  mantle,  the  boot,  the  cuff,  the  stuff 
which  is  in  fashion,  the  color  which  is  becoming,  that  science 
which  makes  of  the  Parisian  woman  something  so  charming, 
so  deep,  and  so  dangerous.  The  words  heady  woman  were 
invented  for  the  Parisienne. 

In  less  than  a  month,  little  Cosette,  in  that  Thebaid  of  the 
Rue  de  Babylone,  was  not  only  one  of  the  prettiest,  but  one 
of  the  "best  dressed"  women  in  Paris,  which  means  a  great 
deal  more. 


88  SAINT-DENIS 

She  would  have  liked  to  encounter  her  "passer-by,"  to  see 
what  he  would  say,  and  to  "teach  him  a  lesson !"  The  truth 
is,  that  she  was  ravishing  in  every  respect,  and  that  she  distin- 
guished the  difference  between  a  bonnet  from  Gerard  and  one 
from  Herbaut  in  the  most  marvellous  way. 

Jean  Valjean  watched  these  ravages  with  anxiety.  He  who 
felt  that  he  could  never  do  anything  but  crawl,  walk  at  the 
most,  beheld  wings  sprouting  on  Cosette. 

Moreover,  from  the  mere  inspection  of  Cosette's  toilet,  a 
woman  would  have  recognized  the  fact  that  she  had  no  mother. 
Certain  little  proprieties,  certain  special  conventionalities, 
were  not  observed  by  Cosette.  A  mother,  for  instance,  would 
have  told  her  that  a  young  girl  does  not  dress  in  damask. 

The  first  day  that  Cosette  went  out  in  her  black  damask 
gown  and  mantle,  and  her  white  crape  bonnet,  she  took  Jean 
Valjean's  arm,  gay,  radiant,  rosy,  proud,  dazzling.  "Father," 
she  said,  "how  do  you  like  me  in  this  guise  ?"  Jean  Valjean  re- 
plied in  a  voice  which  resembled  the  bitter  voice  of  an  envious 
man :  "Charming !"  He  was  the  same  as  usual  during  their 
walk.  On  their  return  home,  he  asked  Cosette: — 

"Won't  you  put  on  that  other  gown  and  bonnet  again, — you 
know  the  ones  I  mean?" 

This  took  place  in  Cosette's  chamber.  Cosette  turned 
towards  the  wardrobe  where  her  cast-off  schoolgirl's  clothes 
were  hanging. 

"That  disguise !"  said  she.  "Father,  what  do  you  want  me 
to  do  with  it  ?  Oh  no,  the  idea !  I  shall  never  put  on  those 
horrors  again.  With  that  machine  on  my  head.  I  have  the  air 
of  Madame  Mad-dog." 

Jean  Valjean  heaved  a  deep  sigh. 

From  that  moment  forth,  he  noticed  that  Cosette,  who  had 
always  heretofore  asked  to  remain  at  home,  saying:  "Father, 
T  enjoy  myself  more  here  with  you,"  now  was  always  asking 
to  go  out.  In  fact,  what  is  the  use  of  having  a  handsome  face 
and  a  delicious  costume  if  one  does  not  display  them? 

He  also  noticed  that  Cosette  had  no  longer  the  same  taste 
for  the  back  garden.  Now  she  preferred  the  garden,  and  did 


THE  HOUSE  IN  THE  RUE  PLUMET  g9 

not  dislike  to  promenade  back  and  forth  in  front  of  the  railed 
fence.  Jean  Valjean,  who  was  shy,  never  set  foot  in  the 
garden.  He  kept  to  his  back  yard,  like  a  dog. 

Cosette,  in  gaining  the  knowledge  that  she  was  beautiful, 
lost  the  grace  of  ignoring  it.  An  exquisite  grace,  for  beauty 
enhanced  by  ingenuousness  is  ineffable,  and  nothing  is  so 
adorable  as  a  dazzling  and  innocent  creature  who  walks  along, 
holding  in  her  hand  the  key  to  paradise  without  being  con- 
scious of  it.  But  what  she  had  lost  in  ingenuous  grace,  she 
gained  in  pensive  and  serious  charm.  Her  whole  person,  per- 
meated with  the  joy  of  youth,  of  innocence,  and  of  beauty, 
breathed  forth  a  splendid  melancholy. 

It  was  at  this  epoch  that  Marius,  after  the  lapse  of  six 
months,  saw  her  once  more  at  the  Luxembourg. 


CHAPTER    VI 

THE  BATTLE  BEGUN 

COSETTE  in  her  shadow,  like  Marius  in  his,  was  all  ready  to 
take  fire.  Destiny,  with  its  mysterious  and  fatal  patience, 
slowly  drew  together  these  two  beings,  all  charged  and  all 
languishing  with  the  stormy  electricity  of  passion,  these  two 
souls  which  were  laden  with  love  as  two  clouds  arc  laden 
with  lightning,  and  which  were  bound  to  overflow  and  mingle 
in  a  look  like  the  clouds  in  a  flash  of  fire. 

The  glance  has  been  so  much  abused  in  love  romances  that  it 
has  finally  fallen  into  disrepute.  One  hardly  dares  to  say, 
nowadays,  that  two  beings  fell  in  love  because  they  looked  at 
each  other.  That  is  the  way  people  do  fall  in  love,  neverthe- 
less, and  the  only  way.  The  rest  is  nothing,  but  the  rest  comes 
afterwards.  Nothing  is  more  real  than  these  great  shocks 
which  two  souls  convey  to  each  other  by  the  exchange  of  that 
spark. 

At  that  particular  hour  when  Cosette  unconsciously  darted 
that  glance  which  troubled  Marius,  Marius  had  no  suspicion 
that  he  had  also  launched  a  look  which  disturbed  Cosette. 


90 

He  caused  her  the  same  good  and  the  same  evil. 

She  had  been  in  the  habit  of  seeing  him  for  a  long  time,  and 
she  had  scrutinized  him  as  girls  scrutinize  and  see,  while 
looking  elsewhere.  Marius  still  considered  Cosette  ugly,  when 
she  had  already  begun  to  think  Marius  handsome.  But  as  he 
paid  no  attention  to  her,  the  young  man  was  nothing  to  her. 

Still,  she  could  not  refrain  from  saying  to  herself  that  he 
had  beautiful  hair,  beautiful  eyes,  handsome  teeth,  a  charm- 
ing tone  of  voice  when  she  heard  him  conversing  with  his 
comrades,  that  he  held  himself  badly  when  he  walked,  if  you 
like,  but  with  a  grace  that  was  all  his  own,  that  he  did  not 
appear  to  be  at  all  stupid,  that  his  whole  person  was  noble, 
gentle,  simple,  proud,  and  that,  in  short,  though  he  seemed 
to  be  poor,  yet  his  air  was  fine. 

On  the  day  when  their  eyes  met  at  last,  and  said  to  each 
other  those  first,  obscure,  and  ineffable  things  which  the 
glance  lisps,  Cosette  did  not  immediately  understand.  She 
returned  thoughtfully  to  the  house  in  the  Rue  de  1'Ouest, 
where  Jean  Valjean,  according  to  his  custom,  had  come  to 
spend  six  weeks.  The  next  morning,  on  waking,  she  thought 
of  that  strange  young  man,  so  long  indifferent  and  icy.  who 
now  seemed  to  pay  attention  to  her,  and  it  did  not  appear  to 
her  that  this  attention  was  the  least  in  the  world  agreeable 
to  her.  She  was,  on  the  contrary,  somewhat  incensed  at  this 
handsome  and  disdainful  individual.  A  substratum  of  war 
stirred  within  her.  It  struck  her,  and  the  idea  caused  her  a 
wholly  childish  joy,  that  she  was  going  to  take  her  revenge 
at  last. 

Knowing  that  she  was  beautiful,  she  was  thoroughly  con- 
scious, though  in  an  indistinct  fashion,  that  she  possessed  a 
weapon.  Women  play  with  their  beauty  as  children  do  with  a 
knife.  They  wound  themselves. 

The  reader  will  recall  Marius'  hesitations,  his  palpitations, 
his  terrors.  He  remained  on  his  bench  and  did  not  approach. 
This  vexed  Cosette.  One  day,  she  said  to  Jean  Valjean: 
"Father,  let  us  stroll  about  a  little  in  that  direction."  Seeing 
that  Marius  did  not  come  to  her,  she  went  to  him.  In  such 


THE  HOUSE  IN  THE  RUE  PLUMET  91 

cases,  all  women  resemble  Mahomet.  And  then,  strange  to 
say,  the  first  symptom  of  true  love  in  a  young  man  is  timidity ; 
in  a  young  girl  it  is  boldness.  This  is  surprising,  and  yet 
nothing  is  more  simple.  It  is  the  two  sexes  tending  to 
approach  each  other  and  assuming,  each  the  other's  qualities. 

That  day,  Cosette's  glance  drove  Marius  beside  himself,  and 
Marius'  glance  set  Cosette  to  trembling.  Marius  went  away 
confident,  and  Cosette  uneasy.  From  that  day  forth,  they 
adored  each  other. 

The  first  thing  that  Cosette  felt  was  a  confused  and  pro- 
found melancholy.  It  seemed  to  her  that  her  soul  had  become 
black  since  the  day  before.  She  no  longer  recognized  it.  The 
whiteness  of  soul  in  young  girls,  which  is  composed  of  coldness 
and  gayety,  resembles  snow.  It  melts  in  love,  which  is  its  sun. 

Cosette  did  not  know  what  love  was.  She  had  never  heard 
the  word  uttered  in  its  terrestrial  sense.  On  the  books  of 
profane  music  which  entered  the  convent,  amour  (love)  was 
replaced  by  tambour  (drum)  or  pandoiir.  This  created  enig- 
mas which  exercised  the  imaginations  of  the  big  girls,  such  as : 
Ah,  how  delightful  is  the  drum!  or,  Pity  is  not  a  pandour. 
But  Cosette  had  left  the  convent  too  early  to  have  occupied 
herself  much  with  the  "drum."  Therefore,  she  did  not  know 
what  name  to  give  to  what  she  now  felt.  Is  any  one  the  less 
ill  because  one  does  not  know  the  name  of  one's  malady  ? 

She  loved  with  all  the  more  passion  because  she  loved 
ignorantly.  She  did  not  know  whether  it  was  a  good  thing  01 
a  bad  thing,  useful  or  dangerous,  eternal  or  temporary,  allow- 
able or  prohibited ;  she  loved.  She  would  have  been  greatly 
astonished,  had  any  one  said  to  her :  "You  do  not  sleep  ? 
But  that  is  forbidden!  You  do  not  eat?  Why,  that  is  very 
bad!  You  have  oppressions  and  palpitations  of  the  heart? 
That  must  not  be!  You  blush  and  turn  pale,  when  a  certain 
being  clad  in  black  appears  at  the  end  of  a  certain  green 
walk?  But  that  is  abominable  !"  She  would  not  have  under- 
stood, and  she  would  have  replied:  "What  fault  is  there  of 
mine  in  a  matter  in  which  I  have  no  power  and  of  which  I 
know  nothing?" 


92  8  Al  XT-DENIS 

It  turned  out  that  the  love  which  presented  itself  was 
exactly  suited  to  the  state  of  her  soul.  It  was  a  sort  of  admira- 
tion at  a  distance,  a  mute  contemplation,  the  deification  of  a 
stranger.  It  was  the  apparition  of  youth  to  youth,  the  dream 
of  nights  become  a  reality  yet  remaining  a  dream,  the  longed- 
for  phantom  realized  and  made  flesh  at  last,  but  having  as 
yet,  neither  name,  nor  fault,  nor  spot,  nor  exigence,  nor 
defect ;  in  a  word,  the  distant  lover  who  lingered  in  the  ideal, 
a  chimara  with  a  form.  Any  nearer  and  more  palpable  meet- 
ing would  have  alarmed  Cosette  at  this  first  stage,  when  she 
was  still  half  immersed  in  the  exaggerated  mists  of  the 
cloister.  She  had  all  the  fears  of  children  and  all  the  fears 
of  nuns  combined.  The  spirit  of  the  convent,  with  which 
she  had  been  permeated  for  the  space  of  five  years,  was  still 
in  the  process  of  slow  evaporation  from  her  person,  and  made 
everything  tremble  around  her.  In  this  situation  he  was  not 
a  lover,  he  was  not  even  an  admirer,  he  was  a  vision.  She  set 
herself  to  adoring  Marius  as  something  charming,  luminous, 
and  impossible. 

As  extreme  innocence  borders  on  extreme  coquetry,  she 
smiled  at  him  with  all  frankness. 

Every  day,  she  looked  forward  to  the  hour  for  their  walk 
with  impatience,  she  found  Marius  there,  she  felt  herself 
unspeakably  happy,  and  thought  in  all  sincerity  that  she  was 
expressing  her  whole  thought  when  she  said  to  Jean  Val- 
jean : — 

"What  a  delicious  garden  that  Luxembourg  is !" 

Marius  and  Cosette  were  in  the  dark  as  to  one  another. 
They  did  not  address  each  other,  they  did  not  salute  each 
other,  they  did  not  know  each  other ;  they  saw  each  other ;  and 
like  stars  of  heaven  which  are  separated  by  millions  of  leagues, 
they  lived  by  gazing  at  each  other. 

It  was  thus  that  Cosette  gradually  became  a  woman  and 
developed,  beautiful  and  loving,  with  a  consciousness  of  her 
beauty,  and  in  ignorance  of  her  love.  She  was  a  coquette  to 
boot  through  her  ignorance. 


THE  HOUSE  IN  THE  RUE  PLUMET  93 

CHAPTER   VII 

TO  ONE  SADNESS  OPPOSE  A  SADNESS  AND  A  HALF 

ALL  situations  have  their  instincts.  Old  and  eternal  Mother 
Nature  warned  Jean  Valjean  in  a  dim  way  of  the  presence  of 
Marius.  Jean  Valjean  shuddered  to  the  very  bottom  of  his 
soul.  Jean  Valjean  saw  nothing,  knew  nothing,  and  yet  he 
scanned  with  obstinate  attention,  the  darkness  in  which  he 
walked,  as  though  he  felt  on  one  side  of  him  something  in 
process  of  construction,  and  on  the  other,  something  which 
was  crumbling  away.  Marius,  also  warned,  and,  in  accord- 
ance with  the  deep  law  of  God,  by  that  same  Mother  Nature, 
did  all  he  could  to  keep  out  of  sight  of  "the  father."  Never- 
theless, it  came  to  pass  that  Jean  Valjean  sometimes  espied 
him.  Marius'  manners  were  no  longer  in  the  least  natural. 
He  exhibited  ambiguous  prudence  and  awkward  daring.  He 
no  longer  came  quite  close  to  them  as  formerly.  He  seated 
himself  at  a  distance  and  pretended  to  be  reading;  why  did 
he  pretend  that  ?  Formerly  he  had  come  in  his  old  coat,  now 
he  wore  his  new  one  every  day;  Jean  Valjean  was  not  sure 
that  he  did  not  have  his  hair  curled,  his  eyes  were  very  queer, 
he  wore  gloves;  in  short,  Jean  Valjean  cordially  detested  this 
young  man. 

Cosette  allowed  nothing  to  be  divined.  Without  knowing 
just  what  was  the  matter  with  her  she  was  convinced  that  there 
was  something  in  it,  and  that  it  must  be  concealed. 

There  was  a  coincidence  between  the  taste  for  the  toilet 
which  had  recently  come  to  Cosette,  and  the  habit  of  new 
clothes  developed  by  that  stranger  which  was  very  repugnant 
to  Jean  Valjean.  It  might  be  accidental,  no  doubt,  certainly, 
but  it  was  a  menacing  accident. 

He  never  opened  his  mouth  to  Cosette  about  this  stranger. 
One  day,  however,  he  could  not  refrain  from  so  doing, 
and,  with  that  vague  despair  which  suddenly  casts  the 
lead  into  the  depths  of  its  despair,  he  said  to  her :  "What  a 
very  pedantic  air  that  young  man  has !" 


Cosette,  but  a  year  before  only  an  indifferent  little  girl,  would 
have  replied :  "Why,  no,  he  is  charming."  Ten  years  later, 
with  the  love  of  Marius  in  her  heart,  she  would  have  answered  : 
UA  pedant,  and  insufferable  to  the  sight!  You  are  right  !"- 
At  the  moment  in  life  and  the  heart  which  she  had  then  at- 
tained, she  contented  herself  with  replying,  with  supreme 
calmness:  "That  young  man!" 

As  though  she  now  beheld  him  for  the  first  time  in  her  life. 

''How  stupid  I  am !"  thought  Jean  Valjean.  "She  had  not 
noticed  him.  It  is  I  who  have  pointed  him  out  to  her." 

Oh,  simplicity  of  the  old !  oh,  the  depth  of  children ! 

It  is  one  of  the  laws  of  those  fresh  years  of  suffering  and 
trouble,  of  those  vivacious  conflicts  between  a  first  love  and  the 
lirst  obstacles,  that  the  young  girl  does  not  allow  herself  to  be 
caught  in  any  trap  whatever,  and  that  the  young  man  falls 
into  every  one.  Jean  Valjean  had  instituted  an  undeclared 
war  against  Marius,  which  Marius,  with  the  sublime  stupidity 
of  his  passion  and  his  age,  did  not  divine.  Jean  Valjean  laid 
a  host  of  ambushes  for  him ;  he  changed  his  hour,  he  changed 
his  bench,  he  forgot  his  handkerchief,  he  came  alone  to  the 
Luxembourg;  Marius  dashed  headlong  into  all  these  snares; 
and  to  all  the  interrogation  marks  planted  by  Jean  Valjean  in 
his  pathway,  he  ingenuously  answered  "yes."  But  Cosette  re- 
mained immured  in  her  apparent  unconcern  and  in  her  im- 
perturbable tranquillity,  so  that  Jean  Valjean  arrived  at  the 
following  conclusion :  "That  ninny  is  madly  in  love  with 
Cosette,  but  Cosette  does  not  even  know  that  he  exists." 

None  the  less  did  he  bear  in  his  heart  a  mournful  tremor. 
The  minute  when  Cosette  would  love  might  strike  at  any 
moment.  Does  not  everything  begin  with  indifference? 

Only  once  did  Cosette  make  a  mistake  and  alarm  him.  He 
rose  from  his  seat  to  depart,  after  a  stay  of  three  hours,  and 
she  said  :  "What,  already?1' 

Jean  Valjean  had  not  discontinued  his  trips  to  the  Luxem- 
bourg, as  he  did  not  wish  to  do  anything  out  of  the  way,  and 
as,  above  all  things,  he  feared  to  arouse  Cosette;  but  during 
the  hours  which  were  so  sweet  to  the  lovers,  while  Cosette  was 


THE  HOUSE  IN  THE  HUE  PLUUET          95 

sending  her  smile  to  the  intoxicated  Marius,  who  perceived 
nothing  else  now, and  who  now  saw  nothing  in  all  the  world  hut 
an  adored  and  radiant  face,  Jean  Valjean  was  fixing  on  Marius 
flashing  and  terrible  eyes.  He,  who  had  finally  come  to  be- 
lieve himself  incapable  of  a  malevolent  feeling,  experienced 
moments  when  Marius  was  present,  in  which  he  thought  he 
was  becoming  savage  and  ferocious  once  more,  and  he  felt  the 
old  depths  of  his  soul,  which  had  formerly  contained  so  much 
wrath,  opening  once  more  and  rising  up  against  that  young 
man.  It  almost  seemed  to  him  that  unknown  craters  were 
forming  in  his  bosom. 

What !  he  was  there,  that  creature !  What  was  he  there 
for?  He  came  creeping  about,  smelling  out,  examining, 
trying!  He  came,  saying:  "Hey!  Why  not?"  He  came  to 
prowl  about  his,  Jean  Valjean's,  life !  to  prowl  about  his  hap- 
piness, with  the  purpose  of  seizing  it  and  bearing  it  away ! 

Jean  Valjean  added :  "Yes,  that's  it !  What  is  he  in  search 
of?  An  adventure!  What  does  he  want?  A  love  affair !  A 
love  affair !  And  I  ?  What !  I  have  been  first,  the  most 
wretched  of  men,  and  then  the  most  unhappy,  and  I  have  tra- 
versed sixty  years  of  life  on  my  knees,  I  have  suffered  every- 
thing that  man  can  suffer,  I  have  grown  old  without  having 
been  young,  I  have  lived  without  a  family,  without  relatives, 
without  friends,  without  life,  without  children,  I  have  left 
my  blood  on  every  stone,  on  every  bramble,  on  every  mile-post, 
along  every  wall,  I  have  been  gentle,  though  others  have  been 
hard  to  me,  and  kind,  although  others  have  been  malicious, 
I  have  become  an  honest  man  once  more,  in  spite  of  every- 
thing, I  have  repented  of  the  evil  that  I  have  done  and  have 
forgiven  the  evil  that  has  been  done  to  me,  and  at  the  moment 
when  I  receive  my  recompense,  at  the  moment  when  it  is  all 
over,  at  the  moment  when  I  am  just  touching  the  goal,  at  the 
moment  when  I  have  what  I  desire,  it  is  well,  it  is  good,  I  have 
paid,  I  have  earned  it,  all  this  is  to  take  flight,  all  this  will 
vanish,  and  I  shall  lose  Cosette,  and  1  shall  lose  my  life,  my 
joy,  my  soul,  because  it  has  pleased  a  great  booby  to  come  and 
lounge  at  the  Luxembourg.'' 


96  SAINT-DENIS 

Then  his  eyes  were  filled  with  a  sad  and  extraordinary 
gleam. 

It  was  no  longer  a  man  gazing  at  a  man;  it  was  no  longer 
an  enemy  surveying  an  enemy.  It  was  a  dog  scanning  a  thief. 

The  reader  knows  the  rest.  Marius  pursued  his  senseless 
course.  One  day  he  followed  Cosette  to  the  Rue  de  1'Ouest. 
Another  day  he  spoke  to  the  porter.  The  porter,  on  his  side, 
spoke,  and  said  to  Jean  Valjean :  "Monsieur,  who  is  that 
curious  young  man  who  is  asking  for  you  ?"  On  the  morrow 
Jean  Valjean  bestowed  on  Marius  that  glance  which  Marius 
at  last  perceived.  A  week  later,  Jean  Valjean  had  taken  his 
departure.  He  swore  to  himself  that  he  would  never  again 
set  foot  either  in  the  Luxembourg  or  in  the  Rue  de  1'Ouest. 
He  returned  to  the  Rue  Plumet. 

Cosette  did  not  complain,  she  said  nothing,  she  asked  no 
questions,  she  did  not  seek  to  learn  his  reasons;  she  had 
already  reached  the  point  where  she  was  afraid  of  being  di- 
vined, and  of  betraying  herself.  Jean  Valjean  had  no  ex- 
perience of  these  miseries,  the  only  miseries  which  are  charm- 
ing and  the  only  ones  with  which  he  was  not  acquainted ;  the 
consequence  was  that  he  did  not  understand  the  grave  signifi- 
cance of  Cosette's  silence. 

He  merely  noticed  that  she  had  grown  sad,  and  he  grew 
gloomy.  On  his  side  and  on  hers,  inexperience  had  joined 
issue. 

Once  he  made  a  trial.    He  asked  Cosette : — 

"Would  you  like  to  come  to  the  Luxembourg  ?" 

A  ray  illuminated  Cosette's  pale  face. 

"Yes,"  said  she. 

They  went  thither.  Three  months  had  elapsed.  Marius  no 
longer  went  there.  Marius  was  not  there. 

On  the  following  day,  Jean  Valjean  asked  Cosette  again: — 

"Would  you  like  to  come  to  the  Luxembourg?" 

She  replied,  sadly  and  gently : — 

"No." 

Jean  Valjean  was  hurt  by  this  sadness,  and  heart-broken  at 
this  jrentleness. 


THE  HOUSE  IN  THE  RUE  PLL'MET  97 

What  was  going  on  in  that  mind  which  was  so  young  and 
yet  already  so  impenetrable?  What  was  on  its  way  there 
within  ?  What  was  taking  place  in  Cosette's  soul  ?  Some- 
times, instead  of  going  to  bed,  Jean  Valjean  remained  seated 
on  his  pallet,  with  his  head  in  his  hands,  and  he  passed  whole 
nights  asking  himself:  "What  has  Cosette  in  her  mind?"  and 
in  thinking  of  the  things  that  she  might  be  thinking  about. 

Oh !  at  such  moments,  what  mournful  glances  did  he  cast 
towards  that  cloister,  that  chaste  peak,  that  abode  of  angels, 
that  inaccessible  glacier  of  virtue !  How  he  contemplated, 
with  despairing  ecstasy,  that  convent  garden,  full  of  ignored 
flowers  and  cloistered  virgins,  where  all  perfumes  and  all  souls 
mount  straight  to  heaven !  How  he  adored  that  Eden  forever 
closed  against  him,  whence  he  had  voluntarily  and  madly 
emerged !  How  he  regretted  his  abnegation  and  his  folly  in 
having  brought  Cosette  back  into  the  world,  poor  hero  of  sac- 
rifice, seized  and  hurled  to  the  earth  by  his  very  self-devotion ! 
How  he  said  to  himself,  "What  have  I  done  ?" 

However,  nothing  of  all  this  was  perceptible  to  Cosette.  Xo 
ill-temper,  no  harshness.  His  face  was  always  serene  and 
kind.  Jean  Valjean's  manners  were  more  tender  and  more 
paternal  than  ever.  If  anything  could  have  betrayed  his  lack 
of  joy,  it  was  his  increased  suavity. 

On  her  side,  Cosette  languished.  She  suffered  from  the 
absence  of  Marius  as  she  had  rejoiced  in  his  presence,  pecu- 
liarly, without  exactly  being  conscious  of  it.  When  Jean  Ynl- 
jean  ceased  to  take  her  on  their  customary  strolls,  a  feminine 
instinct  murmured  confusedly,  at  the  bottom  of  her  heart, 
that  she  must  not  seem  to  set  store  on  the  Luxembourg  garden, 
and  that  if  this  proved  to  be  a  matter  of  indifference  to  her, 
her  father  would  take  her  thither  once  more.  But  days,  weeks, 
months,  elapsed.  Jean  Yuljenn  had  tacitly  accepted  Cosette's 
tacit  consent.  She  regretted  it.  It  was  too  late.  So  Marius 
had  disappeared  ;  all  was  over.  The  day  on  which  she  returned 
to  the  Luxembourg,  Marius  was  no  longer  there.  What  was  to 
be  done?  Should  she  ever  find  him  again?  She  felt  an  an- 
guish at  her  heart,  which  nothing  relieved,  and  which  aug- 


98  8AIXT-DKNI8 

mented  every  day;  she  no  longer  knew  whether  it  was  winter 
or  summer,  whether  it  was  raining  or  shining,  whether  the 
birds  were  singing,  whether  it  was  the  season  for  dahlias  or 
daisies,  whether  the  Luxembourg  was  more  charming  than  the 
Tuileries,  whether  the  linen  which  the  laundress  brought  home 
was  starched  too  much  or  not  enough,  whether  Toussaint  had 
done  "her  marketing"  well  or  ill;  and  she  remained  dejected, 
absorbed,  attentive  to  but  a  single  thought,  her  eyes  vague 
and  staring  as  when  one  gazes  by  night  at  a  black  and  fathom- 
less spot  where  an  apparition  has  vanished. 

However,  she  did  not  allow  Jean  Valjean  to  perceive  any- 
thing of  this,  except  her  pallor. 

She  still  wore  her  sweet  face  for  him. 

This  pallor  sufficed  but  too  thoroughly  to  trouble  Jean  Val- 
jean. Sometimes  he  asked  her : — 

"What  is  the  matter  with  you  ?" 

She  replied :  "There  is  nothing  the  matter  with  me." 

And  after  a  silence,  when  she  divined  that  he  was  sad  also, 
she  would  add : — 

"And  you,  father — is  there  anything  wrong  with  you  ?" 

"With  me  ?    Nothing,"  said  he. 

These  two  beings  who  had  loved  each  other  so  exclusively, 
and  with  so  touching  an  affection,  and  who  had  lived  so  long 
for  each  other,  now  suffered  side  by  side,  each  on  the  other's 
account;  without  acknowledging  it  to  each  other,  without 
anger  towards  each  other,  and  with  a  smile. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE   CHAIN-GANG 

JEAN  VALJEAN  was  the  more  unhappy  of  the  two.  Youth, 
even  in  its  sorrows,  always  possesses  its  own  peculiar  radiance. 

At  times,  Jean  Valjean  suffered  so  greatly  that  he  became 
puerile.  It  is  the  property  of  grief  to  cause  the  childish  side 
of  man  to  reappear.  He  had  an  unconquerable  conviction  that 


THE  HOUSE  IN  THE  RLE  PLIMET  99 

Cosette  was  escaping  from  him.  He  would  have  liked  to  re- 
sist, to  retain  her,  to  arouse  her  enthusiasm  by  some  external 
and  brilliant  matter.  These  ideas,  puerile,  as  we  have  just 
said,  and  at  the  same  time  senile,  conveyed  to  him,  by  their 
very  childishness,  a  tolerably  just  notion  of  the  influence  of 
gold  lace  on  the  imaginations  of  young  girls.  He  once  chanced 
to  see  a  general  on  horseback,  in  full  uniform,  pass  along  the 
street,  Comte  Coutard,  the  commandant  of  Paris.  He  envied 
that  gilded  man;  what  happiness  it  would  be,  he  said  to  him- 
self, if  he  could  put  on  that  suit  which  was  an  incontestable 
thing;  and  if  Cosette  could  behold  him  thus,  she  would  be  daz- 
zled, and  when  he  had  Cosette  on  his  arm  and  passed  the  gates 
of  the  Tuileries,  the  guard  would  present  arms  to  him,  and 
that  would  suflice  for  Cosette,  and  would  dispel  her  idea  of 
looking  at  young  men. 

An  unforeseen  shock  was  added  to  these  sad  reflections. 

In  the  isolated  life  which  they  led,  and  since  they  had  come 
to  dwell  in  the  Rue  Plumet,  they  had  contracted  one  habit. 
They  sometimes  took  a  pleasure  trip  to  sec  the  sun  rise,  a  mild 
species  of  enjoyment  which  befits  those  who  are  entering  life 
and  those  who  are  quitting  it. 

For  those  who  love  solitude,  a  walk  in  the  early  morning  is 
equivalent  to  a  stroll  by  night,  with  the  cheerfulness  of  nature 
added.  The  streets  are  deserted  and  the  birds  arc  .singing. 
Cosette,  a  bird  herself,  liked  to  rise  early.  These  matutinal 
excursions  were  planned  on  the  preceding  evening.  He  pro- 
posed, and  she  agreed.  It  was  arranged  like  a  plot,  they  set 
out  before  daybreak,  and  these  trips  were  so  many  small  de- 
lights for  Cosette.  These  innocent  eccentricities  please  young 
people. 

Jean  Valjean's  inclination  led  him,  as  we  have  seen,  to  the 
least  frequented  spots,  to  solitary  nooks,  to  forgotten  places. 
There  then  existed,  in  the  vicinity  of  the  barriers  of  Paris,  a 
sort  of  poor  meadows,  which  were  almost  confounded  with  the 
city,  where  grew  in  summer  sickly  grain,  and  which,  in  au- 
tumn, after  the  harvest  had  been  gathered,  presented  the  ap- 
pearance, not  of  having  been  reaped,  but  peeled.  Jean  Valjean 


SAINT-DENIS 

loved  to  haunt  these  fields.  Cosette  was  not  bored  there.  It 
meant  solitude  to  him  and  liberty  to  her.  There,  she  became  a 
little  girl  once  more, she  could  run  and  almost  play ;  she  took  off 
her  hat,  laid  it  on  Jean  Valjean's  knees,  and  gathered  bunches 
of  flowers.  She  gazed  at  the  butterflies  on  the  flowers,  but  did 
not  catch  them ;  gentleness  and  tenderness  are  born  with  love, 
and  the  young  girl  who  cherishes  within  her  breast  a  trem- 
bling and  fragile  ideal  has  mercy  on  the  wing  of  a  butterfly. 
She  wove  garlands  of  poppies,  which  she  placed  on  her  head, 
and  which,  crossed  and  penetrated  with  sunlight,  glowing  until 
they  flamed,  formed  for  her  rosy  face  a  crown  of  burning  em- 
bers. 

Even  after  their  life  had  grown  sad,  they  kept  up  their  cus- 
tom of  early  strolls. 

One  morning  in  October,  therefore,  tempted  by  the  serene 
perfection  of  the  autumn  of  1831,  they  set  out,  and  found 
themselves  at  break  of  day  near  the  Barriere  du  Maine.  It 
was  not  dawn,  it  was  daybreak;  a  delightful  and  stern  mo- 
ment. A  few  constellations  here  and  there  in  the  deep,  pale 
azure,  the  earth  all  black,  the  heavens  all  white,  a  quiver  amid 
the  blades  of  grass,  everywhere  the  mysterious  chill  of  twilight. 
A  lark,  which  seemed  mingled  with  the  stars,  was  carolling  at 
a  prodigious  height,  and  one  would  have  declared  that  that 
hymn  of  pettiness  calmed  immensity.  In  the  East,  the  Val- 
de-Grace  projected  its  dark  mass  on  the  clear  horizon  with 
the  sharpness  of  steel ;  Venus  dazzlingly  brilliant  was  rising 
behind  that  dome  and  had  the  air  of  a  soul  making  its  escape 
from  a  gloomy  edifice. 

All  was  peace  and  silence ;  there  was  no  one  on  the  road ;  a 
few  stray  laborers,  of  whom  they  caught  barely  a  glimpse,  were 
on  their  way  to  their  work  along  the  side-paths. 

Jean  Valjean  was  sitting  in  a  cross-walk  on  some  planks  de- 
posited at  the  gate  of  a  timber-yard.  His  face  was  turned  to- 
wards the  highway,  his  back  towards  the  light;  he  had  forgot- 
ten the  sun  which  was  on  the  point  of  rising;  he  had  sunk  into 
one  of  those  profound  absorptions  in  which  the  mind  becomes 
concentrated,  which  imprison  even  the  eye,  and  which  are 


THE  HOUSE  IN  THE  HUE  P LU MET 

equivalent  to  four  walls.  There  are  meditations  which  may 
he  called  vertical ;  when  one  is  at  the  hottorn  of  them,  time 
is  required  to  return  to  earth.  Jean  Valjean  had  plunged 
into  one  of  these  reveries,  lie  was  thinking  of  Cosette,  of 
the  happiness  that  was  possible  if  nothing  came  between 
him  and  her,  of  the  light  with  which  she  filled  his  life,  a  light 
which  was  but  the  emanation  of  her  soul.  He  was  almost 
happy  in  his  revery.  Cosette,  who  was  standing  beside  him, 
was  gazing  at  the  clouds  as  they  turned  rosy. 

All  at  once  Cosette  exclaimed :  "Father,  I  should  think 
some  one  was  coming  yonder."  Jean  Valjean  raised  his  eyes. 

Cosette  was  right.  The  causeway  which  leads  to  the  ancient 
Barriere  du  Maine  is  a  prolongation,  as  the  reader  knows,  of 
the  Rue  de  Sevres,  and  is  cut  at  right  angles  by  the  inner  bou- 
levard. At  the  elbow  of  the  causeway  and  the  boulevard,  at  the 
spot  where  it  branches,  they  heard  a  noise  which  it  was  diffi- 
cult to  account  for  at  that  hour,  and  a  sort  of  confused  pile 
made  its  appearance.  Some  shapeless  thing  which  was  coming 
from  the  boulevard  was  turning  into  the  road. 

It  grew  larger,  it  seemed  to  move  in  an  orderly  manner, 
though  it  was  bristling  and  quivering;  it  seemed  to  be  a  ve- 
hicle, but  its  load  could  not  be  distinctly  made  out.  There 
were  horses,  wheels,  shouts;  whips  were  cracking.  By  de- 
grees the  outlines  became  fixed,  although  bathed  in  shadows. 
It  was  a  vehicle,  in  fact,  which  had  just  turned  from  the  bou- 
levard into  the  highway,  and  which  was  directing  its  course 
towards  the  barrier  near  which  sat  Jean  Valjean ;  a  second,  of 
the  same  aspect,  followed,  then  a  third,  then  a  fourth;  seven 
chariots  made  their  appearance  in  succession,  the  heads  of  the 
horses  touching  the  rear  of  the  wagon  in  front.  Figures  were 
moving  on  these  vehicles,  flashes  were  visible  through  the  dusk 
as  though  there  were  naked  swords  there,  a  clanking  became 
audible  which  resembled  the  rattling  of  chains,  and  as  this 
something  advanced,  the  sound  of  voices  waxed  louder,  and  it 
turned  into  a  terrible  thing  such  as  emerges  from  the  cave  of 
dreams. 

As  it  drew  nearer,  it  assumed  a  form,  and  was  outlined  be- 


102  SAINT-DENIS 

hind  the  trees  with  the  pallid  hue  of  an  apparition;  the  mass 
grew  white;  the  day,  which  was  slowly  dawning,  cast  a  wan 
light  on  this  swarming  heap  which  was  at  once  both  sepulchral 
and  living,  the  heads  of  the  figures  turned  into  the  faces  of 
corpses,  and  this  is  what  it  proved  to  be: — 

Seven  wagons  were  driving  in  a  file  along  the  road.  The 
first  six  were  singularly  constructed.  They  resembled  coopers' 
drays;  they  consisted  of  long  ladders  placed  on  two  wheels 
and  forming  barrows  at  their  rear  extremities.  Each  dray,  or 
rather  let  us  say,  each  ladder,  was  attached  to  four  horses  har- 
nessed tandem.  On  these  ladders  strange  clusters  of  men  were 
being  drawn.  In  the  faint  light,  these  men  were  to  be  divined 
rather  than  seen.  Twenty-four  on  each  vehicle,  twelve  on  a 
side,  back  to  back,  facing  the  passers-by,  their  legs  dangling 
in  the  air, — this  was  the  manner  in  which  these  men  were  trav- 
elling, and  behind  their  backs  they  had  something  which 
clanked,  and  which  was  a  chain,  and  on  their  necks  something 
which  shone,  and  which  was  an  iron  collar.  Each  man  had 
his  collar,  but  the  chain  was  for  all ;  so  that  if  these  four  and 
twenty  men  had  occasion  to  alight  from  the  dray  and  walk, 
they  were  seized  with  a  sort  of  inexorable  unity,  and  were 
obliged  to  wind  over  the  ground  with  the  chain  for  a  backbone, 
somewhat  after  the  fashion  of  millepeds.  In  the  back  and 
front  of  each  vehicle,  two  men  armed  with  muskets  stood  erect, 
each  holding  one  end  of  the  chain  under  his  foot.  The  iron 
necklets  were  square.  The  seventh  vehicle,  a  huge  rack-sided 
baggage  wagon,  without  a  hood,  had  four  wheels  and  six 
horses,  and  carried  a  sonorous  pile  of  iron  boilers,  cast-iron 
pots,  braziers,  and  chains,  among  which  were  mingled  several 
men  who  were  pinioned  and  stretched  at  full  length,  and  who 
seemed  to  be  ill.  This  wagon,  all  lattice-work,  was  garnished 
with  dilapidated  hurdles  which  appeared  to  have  served  for 
former  punishments.  These  vehicles  kept  to  the  middle  of 
the  road.  On  each  side  marched  a  double  hedge  of  guards  of 
infamous  aspect,  wearing  three-cornered  hats,  like  the  soldiers 
under  the  Directory,  shabby,  covered  with  spots  and  holes, 
muffled  in  uniforms  of  veterans  and  the  trousers  of  under- 


THE  HOUSE  IN  THE  RUE  PLUMET  103 

takers'  men,  half  gray,  half  blue,  which  were  almost  hanging  in 
rags,  with  red  epaulets,  yellow  shoulder  belts,  short  sabres, 
muskets,  and  cudgels;  they  were  a  species  of  soldier-black- 
guards. These  myrmidons  seemed  composed  of  the  abjectness 
of  the  beggar  and  the  authority  of  the  executioner.  The  one 
who  appeared  to  be  their  chief  held  a  postilion's  whip  in  his 
hand.  All  these  details,  blurred  by  the  dimness  of  dawn,  be- 
came more  and  more  clearly  outlined  as  the  light  increased. 
At  the  head  and  in  the  rear  of  the  convoy  rode  mounted  gen- 
darmes, serious  and  with  sword  in  fist. 

This  procession  was  so  long  that  when  the  first  vehicle 
reached  the  barrier,  the  last  was  barely  debouching  from  the 
boulevard.  A  throng,  sprung,  it  is  impossible  to  say  whence, 
and  formed  in  a  twinkling,  as  is  frequently  the  case  in  Paris, 
pressed  forward  from  both  sides  of  the  road  and  looked  on. 
In  the  neighboring  lanes  the  shouts  of  people  calling  to  each 
other  and  the  wooden  shoes  of  market-gardeners  hastening  up 
to  gaze  were  audible. 

The  men  massed  upon  the  drays  allowed  themselves  to  be 
jolted  along  in  silence.  They  were  livid  with  the  chill  of 
morning.  They  all  wore  linen  trousers,  and  their  bare  feet 
were  thrust  into  wooden  shoes.  The  rest  of  their  costume  was 
a  fantasy  of  wretchedness.  Their  accoutrements  were  horribly 
incongruous;  nothing  is  more  funereal  than  the  harlequin  in 
rags.  Battered  felt  hats,  tarpaulin  caps,  hideous  woollen 
nightcaps,  and,  side  by  side  with  a  short  blouse,  a  black  coat 
broken  at  the  elbow ;  many  wore  women's  headgear,  others  had 
baskets  on  their  heads;  hairy  breasts  were  visible,  and  through 
the  rent  in  their  garments  tattooed  designs  could  be  descried ; 
temples  of  Love,  flaming  hearts,  Cupids;  eruptions  and  un- 
healthy red  blotches  could  also  be  seen.  Two  or  three  had  a 
straw  rope  attached  to  the  cross-bar  of  the  dray,  and  sus- 
pended under  them  like  a  stirrup,  which  supported  their  feet. 
One  of  them  held  in  his  hand  and  raised  to  his  mouth  some- 
thing which  had  the  appearance  of  a  black  stone  and  which 
he  seemed  to  be  gnawing;  it  was  bread  which  he  was  eating. 
There  were  no  eyes  there  which  were  not  either  dry,  dulled,  or 


104  8AI\'T  DEMS 

flaming  with  an  evil  light.  The  escort  troop  cursed,  the  men 
in  chains  did  not  utter  a  syllable;  from  time  to  time  the  sound 
of  a  blow  became  audible  as  the  cudgels  descended  on  shoulder- 
blades  or  skulls;  some  of  these  men  were  yawning;  their  rags 
were  terrible;  their  feet  hung  down,  their  shoulders  oscillated, 
their  heads  clashed  together,  their  fetters  clanked,  their  eyes 
glared  ferociously,  their  fists  clenched  or  fell  open  inertly  like 
the  hands  of  corpses ;  in  the  rear  of  the  convoy  ran  a  band  of 
children  screaming  with  laughter. 

This  file  of  vehicles,  whatever  its  nature  was,  was  mournful. 
It  was  evident  that  to-morrow,  that  an  hour  hence,  a  pouring 
rain  might  descend,  that  it  might  be  followed  by  another  and 
another,  and  that  their  dilapidated  garments  would  be 
drenched,  that  once  soaked,  these  men  would  not  get  dry 
again,  that  once  chilled,  they  would  not  again  get  warm,  that 
their  linen  trousers  would  be  glued  to  their  bones  by  the 
downpour,  that  the  water  would  fill  their  shoes,  that  no  lashes 
from  the  whips  would  be  able  to  prevent  their  jaws  from 
chattering,  that  the  chain  would  continue  to  bind  them  by 
the  neck,  that  their  legs  would  continue  to  dangle,  and  it  was 
impossible  not  to  shudder  at  the  sight  of  these  human  beings 
thus  hound  and  passive  beneath  the  cold  clouds  of  autumn, 
and  delivered  over  to  the  rain,  to  the  blast,  to  all  the  furies  of 
the  air,  like  trees  and  stones. 

Blows  from  the  cudgel  were  not  omitted  even  in  the  case 
of  the  sick  men,  who  lay  there  knotted  with  ropes  and  mo- 
tionless on  the  seventh  wagon,  and  who  appeared  to  have  been 
tossed  there  like  sacks  filled  with  misery. 

Suddenly,  the  sun  made  its  appearance;  the  immense  light 
of  the  Orient  burst  forth,  and  one  would  have  said  that  it  had 
set  fire  to  all  those  ferocious  heads.  Their  tongues  were  un- 
loosed ;  a  conflagration  of  grins,  oaths,  and  songs  exploded. 
The  broad  horizontal  sheet  of  light  severed  the  file  in  two 
parts,  illuminating  heads  and  bodies,  leaving  feet  and  wheels 
in  the  obscurity.  Thoughts  made  their  appearance  on  these 
faces;  it  was  a  terrible  moment;  visible  demons  with  their 
masks  removed,  fierce  souls  laid  bare.  Though  lighted  up,  this 


THE  UOl'SK  IX   THE  Kl'E  PLl'UET  105 

wild  throng  remained  in  gloom.  Some,  who  were  gay,  had  in 
their  mouths  quills  through  which  they  blew  vermin  over  the 
crowd,  picking  out  the  women:  the  dawn  accentuated  these 
lamentable  profiles  with  the  blackness  of  its  shadows;  there 
was  not  one  of  these  creatures  who  was  not  deformed  by  rea- 
son of  wretchedness:  and  the  whole  was  so  monstrous  that  one 
would  have  said  that  the  sun's  brilliancy  had  been  changed 
into  the  glare  of  the  lightning.  The  wagon-load  which  headed 
the  line  had  struck  up  a  song,  and  were  shouting  at  the  top  of 
their  voices  with  a  haggard  joviality,  a  pot-pourri  by  Desaug- 
iers.  then  famous,  called  Thf  Venial;  the  trees  shivered 
mournfully;  in  the  cross-lanes,  countenances  of  bourgeois 
listened  in  an  idiotic  delight  to  these  coarse  strains  droned  by 
spectres. 

All  sort*  of  distress  met  in  this  procession  as  in  chaos:  here 
were  to  be  found  the  facial  angles  of  every  sort  of  l>east.  old 
men.  youths,  bald  heads,  gray  beards,  cynical  monstrosities. 
sour  resignation,  savage  grins,  senseless  attitudes,  snouts  sur- 
mounted by  caps,  heads  like  those  of  young  girls  with  cork- 
screw curls  on  the  temples,  infantile  visages,  and  by  reason  of 
that,  horrible  thin  skeleton  faces,  to  which  death  alone  was 
lacking.  On  the  first  cart  was  a  negro,  who  had  l*vn  a  slave, 
in  all  probability,  and  who  could  make  a  comparison  of  his 
chains.  The  frightful  leveller  from  Mow.  shame,  had  passed 
over  these  brows;  at  that  degree  of  abasement,  the  last  trans- 
formations were  suffered  by  all  in  their  extremes!  depths,  and 
ignorance,  converted  into  dulness.  was  the  equal  of  intelligence 
converted  into  despair.  There  was  no  choice  possible  between 
these  men  who  appeared  to  the  eye  as  the  tlower  of  the  mud. 
It  was  evident  that  the  person  who  had  had  the  ordering  of 
that  unclean  procession  had  not  classified  them.  These  Iveings 
had  been  fettered  and  coupled  pell-mell,  in  alphabetical  dis- 
order, probably,  and  loaded  hap-hazard  on  those  carts.  Never- 
theless, horrors,  when  grouped  together.  alwa\s  end  bv  evolv- 
ing a  result;  all  additions  of  wretched  men  gi\e  a  sum  total, 
each  chain  exhaled  a  common  soul,  and  each  dray -load  had  its 
own  physiognomy.  By  the  side  of  the  one  where  they  were 


106  BAINT  DENI8 

singing,  there  was  one  where  they  were  howling ;  a  third  where 
they  were  begging;  one  could  be  seen  in  which  they  were 
gnashing  their  teeth ;  another  load  menaced  the  spectators,  an- 
other blasphemed  God;  the  last  was  as  silent  as  the  tomb. 
Dante  would  have  thought  that  he  beheld  his  seven  circles  of 
hell  on  the  march.  The  march  of  the  damned  to  their  tor- 
tures, performed  in  sinister  wise,  not  on  the  formidable  and 
flaming  chariot  of  the  Apocalypse,  but,  what  was  more  mourn- 
ful than  that,  on  the  gibbet  cart. 

One  of  the  guards,  who  had  a  hook  on  the  end  of  his  cudgel, 
made  a  pretence  from  time  to  time,  of  stirring  up  this  mass 
of  human  filth.  An  old  woman  in  the  crowd  pointed  them 
out  to  her  little  boy  five  years  old,  and  said  to  him :  ''Rascal, 
let  that  be  a  warning  to  you  !" 

As  the  songs  and  blasphemies  increased,  the  man  who  ap- 
peared to  be  the  captain  of  the  escort  cracked  his  whip,  and 
at  that  signal  a  fearful  dull  and  blind  flogging,  which  pro- 
duced the  sound  of  hail,  fell  upon  the  seven  dray-loads ;  many 
roared  and  foamed  at  the  mouth ;  which  redoubled  the  delight 
of  the  street  urchins  who  had  hastened  up,  a  swarm  of  flies  on 
these  wounds. 

Jean  Valjean's  eyes  had  assumed  a  frightful  expression. 
They  were  no  longer  eyes;  they  were  those  deep  and  glassy 
objects  which  replace  the  glance  in  the  case  of  certain  wretched 
men,  which  seem  unconscious  of  reality,  and  in  which  flames 
the  reflection  of  terrors  and  of  catastrophes.  He  was  not  look- 
ing at  a  spectacle,  he  was  seeing  a  vision.  He  tried  to  rise,  to 
flee,  to  make  his  escape;  he  could  not  move  his  feet.  Some- 
times, the  things  that  you  see  seize  upon  you  and  hold  you 
fast.  He  remained  nailed  to  the  spot,  petrified,  stupid,  asking 
himself,  athwart  confused  and  inexpressible  anguish,  what  this 
sepulchral  persecution  signified,  and  whence  had  come  that 
pandemonium  which  was  pursuing  him.  All  at  once,  he  raised 
his  hand  to  his  brow,  a  gesture  habitual  to  those  whose  mem- 
ory suddenly  returns;  he  remembered  that  this  was,  in  fact, 
the  usual  itinerary,  that  it  was  customary  to  make  this  detour 
in  order  to  avoid  all  possibility  of  encountering  royalty  on 


THE  HOUSE  IN  THE  RUE  PLVMET        107 

the  road  to  Fontainebleau,  and  that,  five  and  thirty  years 
before,  he  had  himself  passed  through  that  barrier. 

Cosette  was  no  less  terrified,  but  in  a  different  way.  She 
did  not  understand ;  what  she  beheld  did  not  seem  to  her  to  be 
possible ;  at  length  she  cried : — 

"Father !    What  are  those  men  in  those  carts  ?" 

Jean  Val  jean  replied :    "Convicts." 

"Whither  are  they  going?" 

"To  the  galleys." 

At  that  moment,  the  cudgelling,  multiplied  by  a  hundred 
hands,  became  zealous,  blows  with  the  flat  of  the  sword  were 
mingled  with  it,  it  was  a  perfect  storm  of  whips  and  clubs ;  the 
convicts  bent  before  it,  a  hideous  obedience  was  evoked  by  the 
torture,  and  all  held  their  peace,  darting  glances  like  chained 
wolves. 

Cosette  trembled  in  every  limb ;  she  resumed : — 

"Father,  are  they  still  men  ?" 

"Sometimes,"  answered  the  unhappy  man. 

It  was  the  chain-gang,  in  fact,  which  had  set  out  before 
daybreak  from  Bicetre,  and  had  taken  the  road  to  Mans  in 
order  to  avoid  Fontainebleau,  where  the  King  then  was.  This 
caused  the  horrible  journey  to  last  three  or  four  days  longer ; 
but  torture  may  surely  be  prolonged  with  the  object  of  sparing 
the  royal  personage  a  sight  of  it. 

Jean  Valjean  returned  home  utterly  overwhelmed.  Such 
encounters  are  shocks,  and  the  memory  that  they  leave  behind 
them  resembles  a  thorough  shaking  up. 

Nevertheless,  Jean  Valjean  did  not  observe  that,  on  his  way 
back  to  the  Rue  do  Babylone  with  Cosette,  the  latter  was  ply- 
ing him  with  other  questions  on  the  subject  of  what  they  had 
just  seen;  perhaps  he  was  too  much  absorbed  in  his  own  dejec- 
tion to  notice  her  words  and  reply  to  them.  But  when  Cosette 
was  leaving  him  in  the  evening,  to  betake  herself  to  bed,  he 
heard  her  say  in  a  low  voice,  and  as  though  talking  to  herself: 
"It  seems  to  me,  that  if  I  were  to  find  one  of  those  men  in  my 
pathway,  oh,  my  God,  I  should  die  merely  from  the  sight  of 
him  close  at  hand." 


108  8AIXT-DEM8 

Fortunately,  chance  ordained  that  on  the  morrow  of  that 
tragic  day,  there  was  some  official  solemnity  apropos  of  I  know 
not  what, — fetes  in  Paris,  a  review  in  the  Champ  de  Mars, 
jousts  on  the  Seine,  theatrical  performances  in  the  Champs- 
filysees,  fireworks  at  the  Arc  de  Pfitoile,  illuminations  every- 
where. Jean  Valjean  did  violence  to  his  habits,  and  took 
Cosette  to  see  these  rejoicings,  for  the  purpose  of  diverting  her 
from  the  memory  of  the  day  before,  and  of  effacing,  beneath 
the  smiling  tumult  of  all  Paris,  the  abominable  thing  which 
had  passed  before  her.  The  review  with  which  the  festival  was 
spiced  made  the  presence  of  uniforms  perfectly  natural ;  Jean 
Valjean  donned  his  uniform  of  a  national  guard  with  the 
vague  inward  feeling  of  a  man  who  is  betaking  himself  to 
shelter.  However,  this  trip  seemed  to  attain  its  object.  Co- 
sette, who  made  it  her  law  to  please  her  father,  and  to  whom, 
moreover,  all  spectacles  were  a  novelty,  accepted  this  diversion 
with  the  light  and  easy  good  grace  of  youth,  and  did  not  pout 
too  disdainfully  at  that  flutter  of  enjoyment  called  a  public 
fete ;  so  that  Jean  Valjean  was  able  to  believe  that  he  had  suc- 
ceeded, and  that  no  trace  of  that  hideous  vision  remained. 

Some  days  later,  one  morning,  when  the  sun  was  shining 
brightly,  and  they  were  both  on  the  steps  leading  to  the  gar- 
den, another  infraction  of  the  rules  which  Jean  Valjean 
seemed  to  have  imposed  upon  himself,  and  to  the  custom  of  re- 
maining in  her  chamber  which  melancholy  had  caused  Cosette 
to  adopt,  Cosette,  in  a  wrapper,  was  standing  erect  in  that 
negligent  attire  of  early  morning  which  envelops  young  girls 
in  an  adorable  way  and  which  produces  the  effect  of  a  cloud 
drawn  over  a  star;  and,  with  her  head  bathed  in  light,  rosy 
after  a  good  sleep,  submitting  to  the  gentle  glances  of  the 
tender  old  man,  she  was  picking  a  daisy  to 'pieces.  Cosette 
did  not  know  the  delightful  legend,  /  love  a  little,  passionately, 
etc. — who  was  there  who  could  have  taught  her?  She  was 
handling  the  flower  instinctively,  innocently,  without  a  sus- 
picion that  to  pluck  a  daisy  apart  is  to  do  the  same  by  a  heart. 
If  there  were  a  fourth,  and  smiling  Grace  called  Melancholy, 
she  would  have  worn  the  air  of  that  Grace.  Jean  Valjean 


COSET1E    WAS    PICKiNG 


THE  HOUSE  IN  THE  RUE  PLVMET         109 

was  fascinated  by  the  contemplation  of  those  tiny  fingers  on 
that  flower,  and  forgetful  of  everything  in  the  radiance  emit- 
ted by  that  child.  A  red-breast  was  warbling  in  the  thicket, 
on  one  side.  White  cloudlets  floated  across  the  sky,  so  gayly, 
that  one  would  have  said  that  they  had  just  been  set  at  liberty. 
Cosette  went  on  attentively  tearing  the  leaves  from  her  flower ; 
she  seemed  to  be  thinking  about  something;  but  whatever  it 
was,  it  must  be  something  charming;  all  at  once  she  turned  her 
head  over  her  shoulder  with  the  delicate  languor  of  a  swan, 
and  said  to  Jean  Valjean :  "Father,  what  are  the  galleys  like  ?" 


BOOK  FOURTH.— SUCCOR  FROM  BELOW  MAY  TURN 
OUT  TO  BE  SUCCOR  FROM  ON  HIGH 

CHAPTER  I 

A  WOUND  WITHOUT,  HEALING  WITHIN 

THUS  their  life  clouded  over  by  degrees. 

But  one  diversion,  which  had  formerly  been  a  happiness, 
remained  to  them,  which  was  to  carry  bread  to  those  who 
were  hungry,  and  clothing  to  those  who  were  cold.  Cosette 
often  accompanied  Jean  Valjean  on  these  visits  to  the  poor, 
on  which  they  recovered  some  remnants  of  their  former  free 
intercourse;  and  sometimes,  when  the  day  had  been  a  good 
one,  and  they  had  assisted  many  in  distress,  and  cheered  and 
warmed  many  little  children,  Cosette  was  rather  merry  in  the 
evening.  It  was  at  this  epoch  that  they  paid  their  visit  to 
the  Jondrette  den. 

On  the  day  following  that  visit,  Jean  Valjean  made  his 
appearance  in  the  pavilion  in  the  morning,  calm  as  was  his 
wont,  but  with  a  large  wound  on  his  left  arm  which  was 
much  inflamed,  and  very  angry,  which  resembled  a  burn,  and 
which  he  explained  in  some  way  or  other.  This  wound  re- 
sulted in  his  being  detained  in  the  house  for  a  month  with 
fever.  He  would  not  call  in  a  doctor.  When  Cosette  urged 
him,  "Call  the  dog-doctor,"  said  he. 

Cosette  dressed  the  wound  morning  and  evening  with  so 
divine  an  air  and  such  angelic  happiness  at  being  of  use 
to  him,  that  Jean  Valjean  felt  all  his  former  joy  returning, 
his  fears  and  anxieties  dissipating,  and  he  gazed  at  Cosette, 
saying :  "Oh  !  what  a  kindly  wound !  Oh  !  what  a  good  mis- 
fortune !" 


SUCCOR  FROM  BELOW 

Cosette  011  perceiving  that  her  father  was  ill,  had  deserted 
the  pavilion  and  again  taken  a  fancy  to  the  little  lodging  and 
the  back  courtyard.  She  passed  nearly  all  her  days  beside 
Jean  Valjean  and  read  to  him  the  books  which  he  desired. 
Generally  they  were  books  of  travel.  Jean  Valjean  was 
undergoing  a  new  birth;  his  happiness  was  reviving  in  these 
ineffable  rays;  the  Luxembourg,  the  prowling  young  stranger, 
Cosette's  coldness, — all  these  clouds  upon  his  soul  were  grow- 
ing dim.  He  had  reached  the  point  where  he  said  to  him- 
self: "I  imagined  all  that.  I  am  an  old  fool." 

His  happiness  was  so  great  that  the  horrible  discovery  of 
the  Thenardiers  made  in  the  Jondrette  hovel,  unexpected  as 
it  was,  had,  after  a  fashion,  glided  over  him  unnoticed.  He 
had  succeeded  in  making  his  escape ;  all  trace  of  him  was  lost 
— what  more  did  he  care  for !  he  only  thought  of  those 
wretched  beings  to  pity  them.  "Here  they  are  in  prison,  and 
henceforth  they  will  be  incapacitated  for  doing  any  harm,"  he 
thought,  "but  what  a  lamentable  family  in  distress !" 

As  for  the  hideous  vision  of  the  Barriere  du  Maine,  Cosette 
had  not  referred  to  it  again. 

Sister  Sainte-Mechtilde  had  taught  Cosette  music  in  the 
convent;  Cosette  had  the  voice  of  a  linnet  with  a  soul,  and 
sometimes,  in  the  evening,  in  the  wounded  man's  humble 
abode,  she  warbled  melancholy  songs  which  delighted  Jean 
Valjean. 

Spring  came ;  the  garden  was  so  delightful  at  that  season  of 
the  year,  that  Jean  Valjean  said  to  Cosette : — 

"You  never  go  there ;  I  want  you  to  stroll  in  it." 

"As  you  like,  father."  said  Cosette. 

And  for  the  sake  of  obeying  her  father,  she  resumed  her 
walks  in  the  garden,  generally  alone,  for,  as  we  have  men- 
tioned, Jean  Valjean,  who  was  probably  afraid  of  being  seen 
through  the  fence,  hardly  ever  went  there. 

Jean  Valjean's  wound  had  created  a  diversion. 

When  Cosette  saw  that  her  father  was  suffering  less,  that  he 
was  convalescing,  and  that  he  appeared  to  be  happy,  she 
experienced  a  contentment  which  she  did  not  even  perceive. 


FO  gently  and  naturally  had  it  come.  Then,  it  was  in  the 
month  of  March,  the  days  were  growing  longer,  the  winter  was 
departing,  the  winter  always  bears  away  with  it  a  portion  of 
our  sadness ;  then  came  April,  that  daybreak  of  summer,  fresh 
as  dawn  always  is,  gay  like  every  childhood ;  a  little  inclined 
to  weep  at  times  like  the  new-born  being  that  it  is.  In  that 
month,  nature  has  charming  gleams  which  pass  from  the  sky, 
from  the  trees,  from  the  meadows  and  the  flowers  into  the 
heart  of  man. 

Cosette  was  still  too  young  to  escape  the  penetrating  influ- 
ence of  that  April  joy  which  bore  so  strong  a  resemblance  to 
herself.  Insensibly,  and  without  her  suspecting  the  fact,  the 
blackness  departed  from  her  spirit.  In  spring,  sad  souls  grow 
light,  as  light  falls  into  cellars  at  midday.  Cosette  was  no 
longer  sad.  However,  though  this  was  so,  she  did  not  account 
for  it  to  herself.  In  the  morning,  about  ten  o'clock,  after 
breakfast,  when  she  had  succeeded  in  enticing  her  father  into 
the  garden  for  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  and  when  she  was  pacing 
up  and  down  in  the  sunlight  in  front  of  the  steps,  supporting 
his  left  arm  for  him,  she  did  not  perceive  that  she  laughed 
every  moment  and  that  she  was  happy. 

Jean  Valjean,  intoxicated,  beheld  her  growing  fresh  and 
rosy  once  more. 

"Oh  !  What  a  good  wound !"  he  repeated  in  a  whisper. 

And  he  felt  grateful  to  the  Thenardiers. 

His  wound  once  healed,  he  resumed  his  solitary  twilight 
strolls. 

It  is  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  a  person  can  stroll  alone  in 
that  fashion  in  the  uninhabited  regions  of  Paris  without  meet- 
ing with  some  adventure. 


SUCCOR  FROM  BELOW 


CHAPTER    II 

MOTHER  PLUTARQUE  FINDS  NO  DIFFICULTY   IN   EXPLAINING  A 
PHENOMENON 

ONE  evening,  little  Gavroche  had  had  nothing  to  eat;  he 
remembered  that  he  had  not  dined  on  the  preceding  day 
either;  this  was  becoming  tiresome.  He  resolved  to  make  an 
effort  to  secure  some  supper.  He  strolled  out  beyond  the 
Salpetriere  into  deserted  regions;  that  is  where  windfalls  are 
to  be  found;  where  there  is  no  one,  one  always  finds  some- 
thing. He  reached  a  settlement  which  appeared  to  him  to  be 
the  village  of  Austerlitz. 

In  one  of  his  preceding  lounges  he  had  noticed  there  an  old 
garden  haunted  by  an  old  man  and  an  old  woman,  and  in  that 
garden,  a  passable  apple-tree.  Beside  the  apple-tree  stood  a 
sort  of  fruit-house,  which  was  not  securely  fastened,  and 
where  one  might  contrive  to  get  an  apple.  One  apple  is 
a  supper;  one  apple  is  life.  That  which  was  Adam's  ruin 
might  prove  Gavroche's  salvation.  The  garden  abutted  on  a 
solitary,  unpaved  lane,  bordered  with  brushwood  while  await- 
ing the  arrival  of  houses;  the  garden  was  separated  from  it 
by  a  hedge. 

Gavroche  directed  his  steps  towards  this  garden ;  he  found 
the  lane,  he  recognized  the  apple-tree,  he  verified  the  fruit- 
house,  he  examined  the  hedge ;  a  hedge  means  merely  one 
stride.  The  day  was  declining,  there  was  not  even  a  cat  in  the 
lane,  the  hour  was  propitious.  Gavroche  began  the  operation 
of  sealing  the  hedge,  then  suddenly  paused.  Some  one  was 
talking  in  the  garden.  Gavroche  peeped  through  one  of  the 
breaks  in  the  hedge. 

A  couple  of  paces  distant,  at  the  foot  of  the  hedge  on  the 
other  side,  exactly  at  the  point  where  the  gap  which  he  was 
meditating  would  have  been  made,  there  was  a  sort  of  recum- 
bent stone  which  formed  a  bench,  and  on  this  bench  was  seated 
the  old  man  of  the  garden,  while  the  old  woman  was  standing 


H4.  8AIXT-DE1U8 

in  front  of  him.  The  old  woman  was  grumbling.  Gavroche, 
who  was  not  very  discreet,  listened. 

"Monsieur  Mabeuf !"  said  the  old  woman. 

"Mabeuf!"  thought  Gavroche,  "that  name  is  a  perfect 
farce." 

The  old  man  who  was  thus  addressed,  did  not  stir.  The 
old  woman  repeated  : — 

"Monsieur  Mabeuf!" 

The  old  man,  without  raising  his  eyes  from  the  ground, 
made  up  his  mind  to  answer : — 

"What  is  it,  Mother  Plutarque?" 

"Mother  Plutarque !"  thought  Gavroche,  "another  farcical 
name." 

Mother  Plutarque  began  again,  and  the  old  man  was  forced 
to  accept  the  conversation : — 

"The  landlord  is  not  pleased." 

"Why  ?" 

"We  owe  three  quarters  rent." 

"In  three  months,  we  shall  owe  him  for  four  quarters." 

"He  says  that  he  will  turn  you  out  to  sleep." 

"I  will  go." 

"The  green-grocer  insists  on  being  paid.  She  will  no  longer 
leave  her  fagots.  What  will  you  warm  yourself  with  this 
winter?  We  shall  have  no  wood." 

"There  is  the  sun." 

"The  butcher  refuses  to  give  credit ;  he  will  not  let  us  have 
any  more  meat." 

"That  is  quite  right.  I  do  not  digest  meat  well.  It  is  too 
heavy." 

"What  shall  we  have  for  dinner?" 

"Bread." 

"The  baker  demands  a  settlement,  and  says,  'no  money,  no 
bread.'  " 

"That  is  well." 

"What  will  you  eat?" 

"We  have  apples  in  the  apple-room." 

"But,  Monsieur,  we  can't  live  like  that  without  money." 


SUCCOR  FROM  BELOW  H5 

"I  have  none." 

The  old  woman  went  away,  the  old  man  remained  alone. 
He  fell  into  thought.  Gavroche  became  thoughtful  also.  It 
was  almost  dark. 

The  first  result  of  Gavroche's  meditation  was,  that  instead 
of  scaling  the  hedge,  he  crouched  down  under  it.  The 
branches  stood  apart  a  little  at  the  foot  of  the  thicket. 

"Come,"  exclaimed  Gavroche  mentally,  "here's  a  nook !" 
and  he  curled  up  in  it.  His  back  was  almost  in  contact  with 
Father  Mabeuf's  bench.  He  could  hear  the  octogenarian 
breathe. 

Then,  by  way  of  dinner,  he  tried  to  sleep. 

It  was  a  cat-nap,  with  one  eye  open.  While  he  dozed, 
Gavroche  kept  on  the  watch. 

The  twilight  pallor  of  the  sky  blanched  the  earth,  and  the 
lane  formed  a  livid  line  between  two  rows  of  dark  bushes. 

All  at  once,  in  this  whitish  band,  two  figures  made  their 
appearance.  One  was  in  front,  the  other  some  distance  in  the 
rear. 

"There  come  two  creatures,"  muttered  Gavroche. 

The  first  form  seemed  to  be  some  elderly  bourgeois,  who  was 
bent  and  thoughtful,  dressed  more  than  plainly,  and  who  was 
walking  slowly  because  of  his  age,  and  strolling  about  in  the 
open  evening  air. 

The  second  was  straight,  firm,  slender.  It  regulated  its  pace 
by  that  of  the  first ;  but  in  the  voluntary  slowness  of  its  gait, 
suppleness  and  agility  were  discernible.  This  figure  had  also 
something  fierce  and  disquieting  about  it,  the  whole  shape  was 
that  of  what  was  then  called  an  elegant;  the  hat  was  of  good 
shape,  the  coat  black,  well  cut,  probably  of  fine  cloth,  and  well 
fitted  in  at  the  waist.  The  head  was  held  erect  with  a  sort  of 
robust  grace,  and  beneath  the  hat  the  pale  profile  of  a  young 
man  could  be  made  out  in  the  dim  light.  The  profile  had  a 
rose  in  its  mouth.  This  second  form  was  well  known  to 
Gavroche ;  it  was  Montparnasse. 

He  could  have  told  nothing  about  the  other,  except  that  he 
was  a  respectable  old  man. 


SAINT-DENIS 

Gavroche  immediately  began  to  take  observations. 

One  of  these  two  pedestrians  evidently  had  a  project  con- 
nected with  the  other.  Gavroche  was  well  placed  to  watch  the 
course  of  events.  The  bedroom  had  turned  into  a  hiding-place 
at  a  very  opportune  moment. 

Montparnasse  on  the  hunt  at  such  an  hour,  in  such  a  place, 
betokened  something  threatening.  Gavroche  felt  his  gamin's 
heart  moved  with  compassion  for  the  old  man. 

What  was  he  to  do?  Interfere?  One  weakness  coming 
to  the  aid  of  another !  It  would  be  merely  a  laughing  matter 
for  Montparnasse.  Gavroche  did  not  shut  his  eyes  to  the  fact 
that  the  old  man,  in  the  first  place,  and  the  child  in  the  second, 
would  make  but  two  mouthfuls  for  that  redoubtable  ruffian 
eighteen  years  of  age. 

While  Gavroche  was  deliberating,  the  attack  took  place, 
abruptly  and  hideously.  The  attack  of  the  tiger  on  the  wild 
ass,  the  attack  of  the  spider  on  the  fly.  Montparnasse 
suddenly  tossed  away  his  rose,  bounded  upon  the  old  man, 
seized  him  by  the  collar,  grasped  and  clung  to  him,  and 
Gavroche  with  difficulty  restrained  a  scream.  A  moment  later 
one  of  these  men  was  underneath  the  other,  groaning,  strug- 
gling, with  a  knee  of  marble  upon  his  breast.  Only,  it  was 
not  just  what  Gavroche  had  expected.  The  one  who  lay  on 
the  earth  was  Montparnasse ;  the  one  who  was  on  top  was  the 
old  man.  All  this  took  place  a  few  paces  distant  from 
Gavroche. 

The  old  man  had  received  the  shock,  had  returned  it,  and 
that  in  such  a  terrible  fashion,  that  in  a  twinkling,  the  assail- 
ant and  the  assailed  had  exchanged  roles. 

"Here's  a  hearty  veteran !"  thought  Gavroche. 

He  could  not  refrain  from  clapping  his  hands.  But  it  was 
applause  wasted.  It  did  not  reach  the  combatants,  absorbed 
and  deafened  as  they  were,  each  by  the  other,  as  their  breath 
mingled  in  the  struggle. 

Silence  ensued.  Montparnasse  ceased  his  struggles.  Gav- 
roche indulged  in  this  aside:  "Can  he  be  dead!" 

The  goodman  had  not  uttered  a  word,  nor  given  vent  to  a 


SUCCOR  FROM  BELOW  H7 

cry.     Ho  rose  to  his  feet,  and  Gavroche  heard  him  say  to 
Montparnasse : — 

"Get  up." 

Montparnasse  rose,  but  the  goodman  held  him  fast.  Mont- 
parnasse's  attitude  was  the  humiliated  and  furious  attitude  of 
the  wolf  who  has  been  caught  by  a  sheep. 

Gavroche  looked  on  and  listened,  making  an  effort  to  rein- 
force his  eyes  with  his  ears.  He  was  enjoying  himself 
immensely. 

He  was  repaid  for  his  conscientious  anxiety  in  the  character 
of  a  spectator.  He  was  able  to  catch  on  the  wing  a  dialogue 
which  borrowed  from  the  darkness  an  indescribably  tragic 
accent.  The  goodman  questioned,  Montparnasse  replied. 

"How  old  are  you?" 

"Nineteen." 

"You  are  strong  and  healthy.    Why  do  you  not  work  ?" 

"It  bores  me." 

"What  is  your  trade  ?" 

"An  idler." 

"Speak  seriously.  Can  anything  be  done  for  you?  What 
would  you  like  to  be?" 

"A  thief." 

A  pause  ensued.  The  old  man  seemed  absorbed  in  profound 
thought.  He  stood  motionless,  and  did  not  relax  his  hold  on 
Montparnasse. 

Every  moment  the  vigorous  and  agile  young  ruffian  indulged 
in  the  twitchings  of  a  wild  bejjst  caught  in  a  snare.  He  gave 
a  jerk,  tried  a  crook  of  the  knee,  twisted  his  limbs  desper- 
ately, and  made  efforts  to  escape. 

The  old  man  did  not  appear  to  notice  it,  and  held  both  his 
arms  with  one  hand,  with  the  sovereign  indifference  of  abso- 
lute force. 

The  old  man's  revery  lasted  for  some  time,  then,  looking 
steadily  at  Montparnasse,  he  addressed  to  him  in  a  gentle 
voice,  in  the  midst  of  the  darkness  where  they  stood,  a  solemn 
harangue,  of  which  Gavroche  did  not  lose  a  single  syllable  :— 

"My  child,  you  are  entering,  through  indolence,  on  one 


118  8AINT-DEXI8 

of  the  most  laborious  of  lives.  Ah !  You  declare  yourself  to 
be  an  idler !  prepare  to  toil.  There  is  a  certain  formidable 
machine,  have  you  seen  it?  It  is  the  rolling-mill.  You  must 
be  on  your  guard  against  it.  it  is  crafty  and  ferocious;  if  it 
catches  hold  of  the  skirt  of  your  coat,  you  will  be  drawn  in 
bodily.  That  machine  is  laziness.  Stop  while  there  is  yet 
time,  and  save  yourself !  Otherwise,  it  is  all  over  with  you  ;  in 
a  short  time  you  will  be  among  the  gearing.  Once  entangled, 
hope  for  nothing  more.  Toil,  lazybones !  there  is  no  more 
repose  for  you !  The  iron  hand  of  implacable  toil  has  seized 
you.  You  do  not  wish  to  earn  your  living,  to  have  a  task,  to 
fulfil  a  duty  !  It  bores  you  to  be  like  other  men  ?  Well !  You 
will  be  different.  Labor  is  the  law ;  he  who  rejects  it  will  find 
ennui  his  torment.  You  do  not  wish  to  be  a  workingman,  you 
will  be  a  slave.  Toil  lets  go  of  you  on  one  side  only  to  grasp 
you  again  on  the  other.  You  do  not  desire  to  be  its  friend,  you 
shall  be  its  negro  slave.  Ah !  You  would  have  none  of  the 
honest  weariness  of  men,  you  shall  have  the  sweat  of  the 
damned.  Where  others  sing,  you  will  rattle  in  your  throat. 
You  will  see  afar  off,  from  below,  other  men  at  work ;  it  will 
seem  to  you  that  they  are  resting.  The  laborer,  the  harvester, 
the  sailor,  the  blacksmith,  will  appear  to  you  in  glory  like  the 
blessed  spirits  in  paradise.  What  radiance  surrounds  the 
forge !  To  guide  the  plough,  to  bind  the  sheaves,  is  joy.  The 
bark  at  liberty  in  the  wind,  what  delight !  Do  you,  lazy  idler, 
delve,  drag  on,  roll,  march !  Drag  your  halter.  You  are  a 
beast  of  burden  in  the  team  of  hell !  Ah !  To  do  nothing 
is  your  object.  Well,  not  a  week,  not  a  day,  not  an  hour  shall 
you  have  free  from  oppression.  You  will  be  able  to  lift 
nothing  without  anguish.  Every  minute  that  passes  will  make 
your  muscles  crack.  What  is  a  feather  to  others  will  be  a  rock 
to  you.  The  simplest  things  will  become  steep  acclivities. 
Life  will  become  monstrous  all  about  you.  To  go.  to  come,  to 
breathe,  will  be  just  so  many  terrible  labors.  Your  lungs  will 
produce  on  you  the  effect  of  weighing  a  hundred  pounds. 
Whether  you  shall  walk  here  rather  than  there,  will  become  a 
problem  that  must  be  solved.  Any  one  who  wants  to  go  out 


8UCCOK  FROM  BELOW  H9 

simply  gives  his  door  a  push,  and  there  he  is  in  the  open  air. 
If  you  wish  to  go  out,  you  will  be  obliged  to  pierce  your  wall. 
What  does  every  one  who  wants  to  step  into  the  street  do  ?  He 
goes  down  stairs;  you  will  tear  up  your  sheets,  little  by  little 
you  will  make  of  them  a  rope,  then  you  will  climb  out  of  your 
window,  and  you  will  suspend  yourself  by  that  thread  over  an 
abyss,  and  it  will  be  night,  amid  storm,  rain,  and  the  hurri- 
cane, and  if  the  rope  is  too  short,  but  one  way  of  descending 
will  remain  to  you,  to  fall.  To  drop  hap-hazard  into  the  gulf, 
from  an  unknown  height,  on  what  ?  On  what  is  beneath,  on 
the  unknown.  Or  you  will  crawl  up  a  chimney-flue,  at  the 
risk  of  burning;  or  you  will  creep  through  a  sewer-pipe,  at 
the  risk  of  drowning;  I  do  not  speak  of  the  holes  that  you 
will  be  obliged  to  mask,  of  the  stones  which  you  will  have  to 
take  up  and  replace  twenty  times  a  day,  of  the  plaster  that 
you  will  have  to  hide  in  your  straw  pallet.  A  lock  presents 
itself;  the  bourgeois  has  in  his  pocket  a  key  made  by  a  lock- 
smith. If  you  wish  to  pass  out,  you  will  be  condemned  to 
execute  a  terrible  work  of  art ;  you  will  take  a  large  sou,  you 
will  cut  it  in  two  plates ;  with  what  tools  ?  You  will  have  to 
invent  them.  That  is  your  business.  Then  you  will  hollow 
out  the  interior  of  these  plates,  taking  great  care  of  the  out- 
side, and  you  will  make  on  the  edges  a  thread,  so  that  they 
can  be  adjusted  one  upon  the  other  like  a  box  and  its  cover. 
The  top  and  bottom  thus  screwed  together,  nothing  will  be 
suspected.  To  the  overseers  it  will  be  only  a  sou ;  to  you  it 
will  be  a  box.  What  will  you  put  in  this  box  ?  A  small  bit  of 
steel.  A  watch-spring,  in  which  you  will  have  cut  teeth,  and 
which  will  form  a  saw.  With  this  saw,  as  long  as  a  pin,  and 
concealed  in  a  sou,  you  will  cut  the  bolt  of  the  lock,  you  will 
sever  bolts,  the  padlock  of  your  chain,  and  the  bar  at  your 
window,  and  the  fetter  on  your  leg.  This  masterpiece  fin- 
ished, this  prodigy  accomplished,  all  these  miracles  of  art. 
address,  skill,  and  patience  executed,  what  will  be  your  recom- 
pense if  it  becomes  known  that  you  are  the  author?  The 
dungeon.  There  is  your  future.  What  precipices  are  idleness 
and  pleasure !  Do  you  know  that  to  do  nothing  is  a  melan- 


120  SAIST-DENIS 

choly  resolution?  To  live  in  idleness  on  the  property  of 
society !  to  be  useless,  that  is  to  say,  pernicious !  This  leads 
straight  to  the  depth  of  wretchedness.  Woe  to  the  man  who 
desires  to  be  a  parasite !  He  will  become  vermin  !  Ah  !  So  it 
does  not  please  you  to  work  ?  Ah  !  You  have  but  one  thought, 
to  drink  well,  to  eat  well,  to  sleep  well.  You  will  drink  water, 
you  will  eat  black  bread,  you  will  sleep  on  a  plank  with  a 
fetter  whose  cold  touch  you  will  feel  on  your  flesh  all  night 
long,  riveted  to  your  limbs.  You  will  break  those  fetters,  you 
will  flee.  That  is  well.  You  will  crawl  on  your  belly  through 
the  brushwood,  and  you  will  eat  grass  like  the  beasts  of  the 
forest.  And  you  will  be  recaptured.  And  then  you  will  pass 
years  in  a  dungeon,  riveted  to  a  wall,  groping  for  your  jug 
that  you  may  drink,  gnawing  at  a  horrible  loaf  of  darkness 
which  dogs  would  not  touch,  eating  beans  that  the  worms 
have  eaten  before  you.  You  will  be  a  wood-louse  in  a  cellar. 
Ah !  Have  pity  on  yourself,  you  miserable  young  child,  who 
were  sucking  at  nurse  less  than  twenty  years  ago,  and  who 
have,  no  doubt,  a  mother  still  alive !  I  conjure  you,  listen 
to  me,  I  entreat  you.  You  desire  fine  black  cloth,  varnished 
shoes,  to  have  your  hair  curled  and  sweet-smelling  oils  on  your 
locks,  to  please  low  women,  to  be  handsome.  You  will  be 
shaven  clean,  and  you  will  wear  a  red  blouse  and  wooden 
shoes.  You  want  rings  on  your  fingers,  you  will  have  an 
iron  necklet  on  your  neck.  If  you  glance  at  a  woman,  you 
will  receive  a  blow.  And  you  will  enter  there  at  the  age  of 
twenty.  And  you  will  come  out  at  fifty !  You  will  enter 
young,  rosy,  fresh,  with  brilliant  eyes,  and  all  your  white 
teeth,  and  your  handsome,  youthful  hair;  you  will  come  out 
broken,  bent,  wrinkled,  toothless,  horrible,  with  white  locks ! 
Ah !  my  poor  child,  you  are  on  the  wrong  road ;  idleness  is 
counselling  you  badly;  the  hardest  of  all  work  is  thieving. 
Believe  me,  do  not  undertake  that  painful  profession  of  an 
idle  man.  It  is  not  comfortable  to  become  a  rascal.  It  is 
less  disagreeable  to  be  an  honest  man.  Now  go,  and  ponder 
on  what  I  have  said  to  you.  By  the  way,  what  did  you  want 
of  me?  My  purse?  Here  it  is." 


SUCCOR  FROM  UK  LOW 

And  the  old  man,  releasing  Montparnasse,  put  his  purse  in 
the  latter's  hand;  Montparnasse  weighed  it  for  a  moment, 
after  which  he  allowed  it  to  slide  gently  into  the  back  pocket 
of  his  coat,  with  the  same  mechanical  precaution  as  though 
he  had  stolen  it. 

All  this  having  been  said  and  done,  the  goodman  turned  his 
back  and  tranquilly  resumed  his  stroll. 

"The  blockhead !"  muttered  Montparnasse. 

Who  was  this  goodman  ?  The  reader  has,  no  doubt,  already 
divined. 

Montparnasse  watched  him  with  amazement,  as  he  disap- 
peared in  the  dusk.  This  contemplation  was  fatal  to  him. 

While  the  old  man  was  walking  away,  Gavroche  drew  near. 

Gavroche  had  assured  himself,  with  a  sidelong  glance,  that 
Father  Mabeuf  was  still  sitting  on  his  bench,  probably  sound 
asleep.  Then  the  gamin  emerged  from  his  thicket,  and  began 
to  crawl  after  Montparnasse  in  the  dark,  as  the  latter  stood 
there  motionless.  In  this  manner  he  came  up  to  Montpar- 
nasse without  being  seen  or  heard,  gently  insinuated  his  hand 
into  the  back  pocket  of  that  frock-coat  of  fine  black  cloth, 
seized  the  purse,  withdrew  his  hand,  and  having  recourse  once 
more  to  his  crawling,  he  slipped  away  like  an  adder  through 
the  shadows.  Montparnasse,  who  had  no  reason  to  be  on  his 
guard,  and  who  was  engaged  in  thought  for  the  first  time  in 
his  life,  perceived  nothing.  When  Gavroche  had  once  more 
attained  the  point  where  Father  Mabeuf  was,  he  flung  the 
purse  over  the  hedge,  and  fled  as  fast  as  his  legs  would  carry 
him. 

The  purse  fell  on  Father  Mabeuf's  foot.  This  commotion 
roused  him. 

He  bent  over  and  picked  up  the  purse. 

He  did  not  understand  in  the  least,  and  opened  it. 

The  purse  had  two  compartments;  in  one  of  them  there 
was  some  small  change ;  in  the  other  lay  six  napoleons. 

M.  Mabeuf,  in  great  alarm,  referred  the  matter  to  his  house- 
keeper. 

"That  has  fallen  from  heaven,"  said  Mother  Plutarque. 


BOOK   FIFTH.— THE   END   OF   WHICH   DOES   NOT 
RESEMBLE  THE  BEGINNING 

CHAPTER  I 

SOLITUDE  AND  THE  BARRACKS  COMBINED 

COSETTE'S  grief,  which  had  been  so  poignant  and  lively  four 
or  five  months  previously,  had,  without  her  being  conscious  of 
the  fact,  entered  upon  its  convalescence.  Nature,  spring, 
youth,  love  for  her  father,  the  gayety  of  the  birds  and  flowers, 
caused  something  almost  resembling  forgetfulness  to  filter 
gradually,  drop  by  drop,  into  that  soul,  which  was  so  virgin 
and  so  young.  Was  the  fire  wholly  extinct  there?  Or 
was  it  merely  that  layers  of  ashes  had  formed?  The  truth 
is,  that  she  hardly  felt  the  painful  and  burning  spot  any 
longer. 

One  day  she  suddenly  thought  of  Marius:  "Why!"  said  she, 
"I  no  longer  think  of  him." 

That  same  week,  she  noticed  a  very  handsome  officer  of 
lancers,  with  a  wasp-like  waist,  a  delicious  uniform,  the  cheeks 
of  a  young  girl,  a  sword  under  his  arm,  waxed  mustaches,  and 
a  glazed  schapka,  passing  the  gate.  Moreover,  he  had  light 
hair,  prominent  blue  eyes,  a  round  face,  was  vain,  insolent  and 
good-looking;  quite  the  reverse  of  Marius.  He  had  a  cigar 
in  his  mouth.  Cosette  thought  that  this  officer  doubtless 
belonged  to  the  regiment  in  barracks  in  the  Rue  dc  Babylone. 

On  the  following  day,  she  saw  him  pass  again.  She  took 
note  of  the  hour. 

From  that  time  forth,  was  it  chance?  she  saw  him  pass 
nearly  every  day. 

The  officer's  comrades  perceived  that  there  was,  in  that 


THE  END   UNLIKE  THE  BEGINNING 

"badly  kept"  garden,  behind  that  malicious  rococo  fence,  a 
very  pretty  creature,  who  was  almost  always  there  when  the 
handsome  lieutenant, — who  is  not  unknown  to  the  reader,  and 
whose  name  was  Theodule  (Jillenormand, — passed  by. 

"See  here !"  they  said  to  him,  "there's  a  little  creature  there 
who  is  making  eyes  at  you,  look." 

"Have  I  the  time,"  replied  the  lancer,  "to  look  at  all  the 
girls  who  look  at  me?" 

This  was  at  the  precise  moment  when  Marius  was  descend- 
ing heavily  towards  agony,  and  was  saying:  "If  I  could  but 
see  her  before  I  die!" — Had  his  wish  been  realized,  had  he 
beheld  Cosette  at  that  moment  gazing  at  the  lancer,  he  would 
not  have  been  able  to  utter  a  word,  and  he  would  have  expired 
with  grief. 

Whose  fault  was  it  ?     No  one's. 

Marius  possessed  one  of  those  temperaments  which  bury 
themselves  in  sorrow  and  there  abide;  Cosette  was  one  of 
those  persons  who  plunge  into  sorrow  and  emerge  from  it 
again. 

Cosette  was,  moreover,  passing  through  that  dangerous 
period,  the  fatal  phase  of  feminine  revery  abandoned  to  itself, 
in  which  the  isolated  heart  of  a  young  girl  resembles  the  ten- 
drils of  the  vine  which  cling,  as  chance  directs,  to  the  capital 
of  a  marble  column  or  to  the  post  of  a  wine-shop :  A  rapid 
and  decisive  moment,  critical  for  every  orphan,  be  she  rich 
or  poor,  for  wealth  does  not  prevent  a  bad  choice;  misalliances 
are  made  in  very  high  circles,  real  misalliance  is  that  of  souls; 
and  as  many  an  unknown  young  man,  without  name,  without 
birth,  without  fortune,  is  a  marble  column  which  bears  up  t. 
temple  of  grand  sentiments  and  grand  ideas,  so  such  and  sm-h 
a  man  of  the  world  satisfied  and  opulent,  who  has  polished 
boots  and  varnished  words,  if  looked  at  not  outside,  but 
inside,  a  thing  which  is  reserved  for  his  wife,  is  nothing  more 
than  a  block  obscurely  haunted  by  violent,  unclean,  and  vinous 
passions;  the  post  of  a  drinking-shop. 

What  did  Cosette's  soul  contain  ?  Passion  calmed  or  lulled 
to  sleep;  something  limpid,  brilliant,  troubled  to  a  certain 


124 

depth,  and  gloomy  lower  down.  The  image  of  the  handsome 
officer  was  reflected  in  the  surface.  Did  a  souvenir  linger  in 
the  depths? — Quite  at  the  bottom? — Possibly.  Cosette  did 
not  know. 

A  singular  incident  supervened. 


CHAPTER   II 

COSETTE'S  APPREHENSIONS 

DURING  the  first  fortnight  in  April,  Jean  Valjean  took  a 
journey.  This,  as  the  reader  knows,  happened  from  time  to 
time,  at  very  long  intervals.  He  remained  absent  a  day  or 
two  days  at  the  utmost.  Where  did  he  go  ?  No  one  knew,  not 
even  Cosette.  Once  only,  on  the  occasion  of  one  of  these  de- 
partures, she  had  accompanied  him  in  a  hackney-coach  as 
far  as  a  little  blind-alley  at  the  corner  of  which  she  read : 
Impasse  de  la  Planchette.  There  he  alighted,  and  the  coach 
took  Cosette  back  to  the  Rue  de  Babylone.  It  was  usually 
when  money  was  lacking  in  the  house  that  Jean  Valjean  took 
these  little  trips. 

So  Jean  Valjean  was  absent.  He  had  said :  "I  shall  return 
in  three  days." 

That  evening,  Cosette  was  alone  in  the  drawing-room.  In 
order  to  get  rid  of  her  ennui,  she  had  opened  her  piano-organ, 
and  had  begun  to  sing,  accompanying  herself  the  while,  the 
chorus  from  Euryanthe:  "Hunters  astray  in  the  wood!" 
which  is  probably  the  most  beautiful  thing  in  all  the  sphere 
of  music.  When  she  had  finished,  she  remained  wrapped  in 
thought. 

All  at  once,  it  seemed  to  her  that  she  heard  the  sound  of 
footsteps  in  the  garden. 

It  could  not  be  her  father,  he  was  absent ;  it  could  not  be 
Toussaint,  she  was  in  bed,  and  it  was  ten  o'clock  at  night. 

She  stepped  to  the  shutter  of  the  drawing-room,  which  was 
closed,  and  laid  her  ear  against  it. 


Tin:  J:\D  UNLIKE  THE  BEVI. \XIKO  125 

It  seemed  to  her  that  it  was  the  tread  of  a  man,  and  that  he 
was  walking  very  softly. 

She  mounted  rapidly  to  the  first  floor,  to  her  own  chamber, 
opened  a  small  wicket  in  her  shutter,  and  peeped  into  the 
garden.  The  moon  was  at  the  full.  Everything  could  be  seen 
as  plainly  as  by  day. 

There  was  no  one  there. 

She  opened  the  window.  The  garden  was  absolutely  calm, 
and  all  that  was  visible  was  that  the  street  was  deserted  as 
usual. 

Cosette  thought  that  she  had  been  mistaken.  She  thought 
that  she  had  heard  a  noise.  It  was  a  hallucination  produced 
by  the  melancholy  and  magnificent  chorus  of  Weber,  which 
lays  open  before  the  mind  terrified  depths,  which  trembles 
before  the  gaze  like  a  dizzy  forest,  and  in  which  one  hears  the 
crackling  of  dead  branches  beneath  the  uneasy  tread  of  the 
huntsmen  of  whom  one  catches  a  glimpse  through  the  twilight. 

She  thought  no  more  about  it. 

Moreover,  Cosette  was  not  very  timid  by  nature.  There 
flowed  in  her  veins  some  of  the  blood  of  the  bohemian  and 
the  adventuress  who  runs  barefoot.  It  will  be  remembered 
that  she  was  more  of  a  lark  than  a  dove.  There  was  a  founda- 
tion of  wildness  and  bravery  in  her. 

On  the  following  day,  at  an  earlier  hour,  towards  nightfall, 
she  was  strolling  in  the  garden.  In  the  midst  of  the  con- 
fused thoughts  which  occupied  her,  she  fancied  that  she  caught 
for  an  instant  a  sound  similar  to  that  of  the  preceding  evening, 
as  though  some  one  were  walking  beneath  the  trees  in  the  dusk, 
and  not  very  far  from  her;  but  she  told  herself  that  nothing  so 
closely  resembles  a  step  on  the  grass  as  the  friction  of  two 
branches  which  have  moved  from  side  to  side,  and  she  paid  no 
heed  to  it.  Besides,  she1  could  see  nothing. 

She  emerged  from  "the  thicket";  she  had  still  to  cross  a 
small  lawn  to  regain  the  steps. 

The  moon,  which  had  just  risen  behind  her,  cast  Cosette's 
shadow  in  front  of  her  upon  this  lawn,  as  she  came  out  from 
the  shrubbery. 


126  SAINT-DENIS 

Cosettc  halted  in  alarm. 

Beside  her  shadow,  the  moon  outlined  distinctly  upon  the 
turf  another  shadow,  which  was  particularly  startling  and  ter- 
rible, a  shadow  which  had  a  round  hat. 

It  was  the  shadow  of  a  man,  who  must  have  been  standing 
on  the  border  of  the  clump  of  shrubbery,  a  few  paces  in  the 
rear  of  Cosette. 

She  stood  for  a  moment  without  the  power  to  speak,  or  cry, 
or  call,  or  stir,  or  turn  her  head. 

Then  she  summoned  up  all  her  courage,  and  turned  round 
resolutely. 

There  was  no  one  there. 

She  glanced  on  the  ground.    The  figure  had  disappeared. 

She  re-entered  the  thicket,  searched  the  corners  boldly,  went 
as  far  as  the  gate,  and  found  nothing. 

She  felt  herself  absolutely  chilled  with  terror.  Was  this  an- 
other hallucination?  What!  Two  days  in  succession!  One 
hallucination  might  pass,  but  two  hallucinations?  The  dis- 
quieting point  about  it  was,  that  the  shadow  had  assuredly  not 
been  a  phantom.  Phantoms  do  not  wear  round  hats. 

On  the  following  day  Jean  Valjean  returned.  Cosette  told 
him  what  she  thought  she  had  heard  and  seen.  She  wanted  to 
be  reassured  and  to  see  her  father  shrug  his  shoulders  and  say 
to  her :  "You  are  a  little  goose." 

Jean  Valjean  grew  anxious. 

"It  cannot  be  anything,"  said  he. 

He  left  her  under  some  pretext,  and  went  into  the  garden, 
and  she  saw  him  examining  the  gate  with  great  attention. 

During  the  night  she  woke  up ;  this  time  she  was  sure,  and 
she  distinctly  heard  some  one  walking  close  to  the  flight  of 
steps  beneath  her  window.  She  ran  to  her  little  wicket  and 
opened  it.  In  point  of  fact,  there  was  a  man  in  the  garden, 
with  a  large  club  in  his  hand.  Just  as  she  was  about  to  scream, 
the  moon  lighted  up  the  man's  profile.  It  was  her  father. 
She  returned  to  her  bed,  saying  to  herself:  "He  is  very 
uneasy !" 

Jean  Valjean  passed  that  night  and  the  two  succeeding 


THE  END   UNLIKE  THE  BEGINNING  197 

nights  in  the  garden.  Cosette  saw  him  through  the  hole  in 
her  shut  I  or. 

On  the  third  night,  the  moon  was  on  the  wane,  and  had 
hegun  to  rise  later;  at  one  o'clock  in  the  morning,  possibly, 
she  heard  a  loud  burst  of  laughter  and  her  father's  voice 
calling  her: — 

"Cosette !" 

She  jumped  out  of  bed,  threw  on  her  dressing-gown,  and 
opened  her  window. 

Her  father  was  standing  on  the  grass-plot  below. 

"I  have  waked  you  for  the  purpose  of  reassuring  you,''  said 
he;  "look,  there  is  your  shadow  with  the  round  hat." 

And  he  pointed  out  to  her  on  the  turf  a  shadow  cast  by  the 
moon,  and  which  did,  indeed,  bear  considerable  resemblance  to 
the  spectre  of  a  man  wearing  a  round  hat.  It  was  the  shadow 
produced  by  a  chimney-pipe  of  sheet  iron,  with  a  hood,  which 
rose  above  a  neighboring  roof. 

Cosette  joined  in  his  laughter,  all  her  lugubrious  supposi- 
tions were  allayed,  and  the  next  morning,  as  she  was  at  break- 
fast with  her  father,  she  made  merry  over  the  sinister  garden 
haunted  by  the  shadows  of  iron  chimney-pots. 

Jean  Valjean  became  quite  tranquil  once  more;  as  for  Co- 
eette,  she  did  not  pay  much  attention  to  the  question  whether 
the  chimney-pot  was  really  in  the  direction  of  the  shadow 
which  she  had  seen,  or  thought  she  had  seen,  and  whether  the 
moon  had  been  in  the  same  spot  in  the  sky. 

She  did  not  question  herself  as  to  the  peculiarity  of  a  chim- 
ney-pot which  is  afraid  of  being  caught  in  the  act,  and  which 
retires  when  some  one  looks  at  its  shadow,  for  the  shadow  had 
taken  the  alarm  when  Cosette  had  turned  round,  and  Co- 
sette had  thought  herself  very  sure  of  this.  Cosette's  serenity 
was  fully  restored.  The  proof  appeared  to  her  to  be  complete, 
and  it  quite  vanished  from  her  mind,  whether  there  could  pos- 
sibly be  any  one  walking  in  the  garden  during  the  evening  or 
at  night. 

A  few  days  later,  however,  a  fresh  incident  occurred. 


128  BAINT-DENIB 

CHAPTER  III 

ENRICHED  WITH  COMMENTARIES  BY  TOUSSAINT     • 

IN  the  garden,  near  the  railing  on  the  street,  there  was  a 
stone  bench,  screened  from  the  eyes  of  the  curious  by  a  plan- 
tation of  yoke-elms,  but  which  could,  in  case  of  necessity,  be 
reached  by  an  arm  from  the  outside,  past  the  trees  and  the 
gate. 

One  evening  during  that  same  month  of  April,  Jean  Val- 
jean  had  gone  out;  Cosette  had  seated  herself  on  this  bench 
after  sundown.  The  breeze  was  blowing  briskly  in  the  trees, 
Cosette  was  meditating;  an  objectless  sadness  was  taking  pos- 
session of  her  little  by  little,  that  invincible  sadness  evoked  by 
the  evening,  and  which  arises,  perhaps,  who  knows,  from  the 
mystery  of  the  tomb  which  is  ajar  at  that  hour. 

Perhaps  Fantine  was  within  that  shadow. 

Cosette  rose,  slowly  made  the  tour  of  the  garden,  walking 
on  the  grass  drenched  in  dew,  and  saying  to  herself,  through 
the  species  of  melancholy  somnanbulism  in  which  she  was 
plunged :  "Really,  one  needs  wooden  shoes  for  the  garden  at 
this  hour.  One  takes  cold." 

She  returned  to  the  bench. 

As  she  was  about  to  resume  her  seat  there,  she  observed 
on  the  spot  which  she  had  quitted,  a  tolerably  large  stone 
which  had,  evidently,  not  been  there  a  moment  before. 

Cosette  gazed  at  the  stone,  asking  herself  what  it  meant. 
All  at  once  the  idea  occurred  to  her  that  the  stone  had  not 
reached  the  bench  all  by  itself,  that  some  one  had  placed  it 
there,  that  an  arm  had  been  thrust  through  the  railing,  and 
this  idea  appeared  to  alarm  her.  This  time,  the  fear  was  gen- 
uine ;  the  stone  was  there.  No  doubt  was  possible ;  she  did 
not  touch  it,  fled  without  glancing  behind  her,  took  refuge 
in  the  house,  and  immediately  closed  with  shutter,  bolt,  and 
bar  the  door-like  window  opening  on  the  flight  of  steps.  She 
inquired  of  Toussaint: — 


THE  END   UNLIKE   THE  BEGINNING  129 

"Has  my  father  returned  yet  ?" 

"Not  yet,  Mademoiselle." 

[We  have  already  noted  once  for  all  the  fact  that  Toussaint 
stuttered.  May  we  be  permitted  to  dispense  with  it  for  the 
future.  The  musical  notation  of  an  infirmity  is  repugnant 
to  us.] 

Jean  Valjcan,  a  thoughtful  man,  and  given  to  nocturnal 
strolls,  often  returned  quite  late  at  night. 

"Toussaint,"  went  on  Cosette,  "are  you  careful  to  thor- 
oughly barricade  the  shutters  opening  on  the  garden,  at  least 
with  bars,  in  the  evening,  and  to  put  the  little  iron  things 
in  the  little  rings  that  close  them?" 

"Oh !  be  easy  on  that  score,  Miss." 

Toussaint  did  not  fail  in  her  duty,  and  Cosette  was  well 
aware  of  the  fact,  but  she  could  not  refrain  from  adding: — 

"It  is  so  solitary  here." 

"So  far  as  that  is  concerned,"  said  Toussaint,  "it  is  true. 
We  might  be  assassinated  before  we  had  time  to  say  ouf!  And 
Monsieur  does  not  sleep  in  the  house,  to  boot.  But  fear  noth- 
ing, Miss,  I  fasten  the  shutters  up  like  prisons.  Lone  women  ! 
That  is  enough  to  make  one  shudder,  I  believe  you !  Just 
imagine,  what  if  you  were  to  see  men  enter  your  chamber  at 
night  and  say :  'Hold  your  tongue !'  and  begin  to  cut  your 
throat.  It's  not  the  dying  so  much ;  you  die,  for  one  must 
die,  and  that's  all  right ;  it's  the  abomination  of  feeling  those 
people  touch  you.  And  then,  their  knives;  they  can't  be  able 
to  cut  well  with  them!  Ah,  good  gracious!" 

"Be  quiet,"  said  Cosette.    "Fasten  everything  thoroughly." 

Cosette,  terrified  by  the  melodrama  improvised  by  Tous- 
saint, and  possibly,  also,  by  the  recollection  of  the  apparitions 
of  the  past  week,  which  recurred  to  her  memory,  dared  not 
even  say  to  her:  "Go  and  look  at  the  stone  which  has  been 
placed  on  the  bench!"  for  fear  of  opening  the  garden  gate 
and  allowing  "the  men"  to  enter.  She  saw  that  all  the  doors 
and  windows  were  carefully  fastened,  made  Toussaint  go  all 
over  the  house  from  garret  to  cellar,  locked  herself  up  in  her 
own  chamber,  bolted  her  door,  looked  under  her  couch,  went 


130  SAINT-DENIS 

to  bed  and  slept  badly.  All  night  long  she  saw  that  big  stone, 
as  large  as  a  mountain  and  full  of  caverns. 

At  sunrise, — the  property  of  the  rising  sun  is  to  make  us 
laugh  at  all  our  terrors  of  the  past  night,  and  our  laughter  is 
in  direct  proportion  to  our  terror  which  they  have  caused, — at 
sunrise  Cosette,  when  she  woke,  viewed  her  fright  as  a  night- 
mare, and  said  to  herself:  "What  have  1  been  thinking  of? 
It  is  like  the  footsteps  that  I  thought  I  heard  a  week  or  two 
ago  in  the  garden  at  night !  It  is  like  the  shadow  of  the 
chimney-pot !  Am  I  becoming  a  coward  ?"  The  sun,  which 
was  glowing  through  the  crevices  in  her  shutters,  and  turning 
the  damask  curtains  crimson,  reassured  her  to  such  an  extent 
that  everything  vanished  from  her  thoughts,  even  the  stone. 

"There  was  no  more  a  stone  on  the  bench  than  there  was  a 
man  in  a  round  hat  in  the  garden ;  I  dreamed  about  the  stone, 
as  I  did  all  the  rest." 

She  dressed  herself,  descended  to  the  garden,  ran  to  the 
bench,  and  broke  out  in  a  cold  perspiration.  The  stone  was 
there. 

But  this  lasted  only  for  a  moment.  That  which  is  terror  by 
night  is  curiosity  by  day. 

"Bah !"  said  she,  "come,  let  us  see  what  it  is." 

She  lifted  the  stone,  which  was  tolerably  large.  Beneath  it 
was  something  which  resembled  a  letter.  It  was  a  white 
envelope.  Cosette  seized  it.  There  was  no  address  on  one 
side,  no  seal  on  the  other.  Yet  the  envelope,  though  unsealed, 
was  not  empty.  Papers  could  be  seen  inside. 

Cosette  examined  it.  It  was  no  longer  alarm,  it  was  no 
longer  curiosity ;  it  was  a  beginning  of  anxiety. 

Cosette  drew  from  the  envelope  its  contents,  a  little  note- 
book of  paper,  each  page  of  which  was  numbered  and  bore  a 
few  lines  in  a  very  fine  and  rather  pretty  handwriting,  as 
Cosette  thought. 

Cosette  looked  for  a  name ;  there  was  none.  To  whom  was 
this  addressed?  To  her,  probably,  since  a  hand  had  deposited 
the  packet  on  her  bench.  From  whom  did  it  come?  An  irre- 
sistible fascination  took  possession  of  her;  she  tried  to  turn 


THE  END   UNLIKE   THE   BEGINNING 

away  her  eyes  from  the  leaflets  which  were  trembling  in  her 
hand,  she  gazed  at  the  sky,  the  street,  the  acacias  all  bathed  in 
light,  the  pigeons  fluttering  over  a  neighboring  roof,  and  then 
her  glance  suddenly  fell  upon  the  manuscript,  and  she  said  to 
herself  that  she  must  know  what  it  contained. 
This  is  what  she  read. 


CHAPTER   IV 

A  HEART  BENEATH  A  STONE 

THE  reduction  of  the  universe  to  a  single  being,  the  expan- 
sion of  a  single  being  even  to  God,  that  is  love. 


Love  is  the  salutation  of  the  angels  to  the  stars. 


How  sad  is  the  soul,  when  it  is  sad  through  love ! 


What  a  void  in  the  absence  of  the  being  who,  by  herself 
alone  fills  the  world !  Oh !  how  true  it  is  that  the  beloved 
being  becomes  God.  One  could  comprehend  that  God  might 
be  jealous  of  this  had  not  God  the  Father  of  all  evidently 
made  creation  for  the  soul,  and  the  soul  for  love. 


The  glimpse  of  a  smile  beneath  a  white  crape  bonnet  with  a 
lilac  curtain  is  sufficient  to  cause  the  soul  to  enter  into  the 
palace  of  dreams.  

God  is  behind  everything,  but  everything  hides  God. 
Things  are  black,  creatures  are  opaque.  To  love  a  being  is  to 
render  that  being  transparent. 


Certain  thoughts  are  prayers.     There  are  moments  when, 


132  SAINT-DENIS 

whatever  the  attitude  of  the  body  may  be,  the  soul  is  on  its 
knees.  

Parted  lovers  beguile  absence  by  a  thousand  chimerical 
devices,  which  possess,  however,  a  reality  of  their  own.  They 
are  prevented  from  seeing  each  other,  they  cannot  write  to 
each  other;  they  discover  a  multitude  of  mysterious  means  to 
correspond.  They  send  each  other  the  song  of  the  birds,  the 
perfume  of  the  flowers,  the  smiles  of  children,  the  light  of  the 
sun,  the  sighings  of  the  breeze,  the  rays  of  stars,  all  creation. 
And  why  not  ?  All  the  works  of  God  are  made  to  serve  love. 
Love  is  sufficiently  potent  to  charge  all  nature  with  its  mes- 
sages. 

Oh  Spring !    Thou  art  a  letter  that  I  write  to  her. 


The  future  belongs  to  hearts  even  more  than  it  does  to 
minds.  Love,  that  is  the  only  thing  that  can  occupy  and  fill 
eternity.  In  the  infinite,  the  inexhaustible  is  requisite. 


Love  participates  of  the  soul  itself.  It  is  of  the  same  nature. 
Like  it,  it  is  the  divine  spark ;  like  it,  it  is  incorruptible,  indi- 
visible, imperishable.  It  is  a  point  of  fire  that  exists  within 
us,  which  is  immortal  and  infinite,  which  nothing  can  confine, 
and  which  nothing  can  extinguish.  We  feel  it  burning  even 
to  the  very  marrow  of  our  bones,  and  we  see  it  beaming  in  the 
very  depths  of  heaven.  

Oh  Love  !  Adorations  !  voluptuousness  of  two  minds  which 
understand  each  other,  of  two  hearts  which  exchange  with 
each  other,  of  two  glances  which  penetrate  each  other !  You 
will  come  to  me,  will  you  not,  bliss!  strolls  by  twos  in  the 
solitudes !  Blessed  and  radiant  days !  I  have  sometimes 
dreamed  that  from  time  to  time  hours  detached  themselves 
from  the  lives  of  the  angels  and  came  here  below  to  traverse 
the  destinies  of  men. 


THE  END  UNLIKE  THE  BEGINNING  133 

God  can  add  nothing  to  the  happiness  of  those  who  love, 
except  to  give  them  endless  duration.  After  a  life  of  love,  an 
eternity  of  love  is,  in  fact,  an  augmentation ;  but  to  increase 
in  intensity  even  the  ineffable  felicity  which  love  bestows  on 
the  soul  even  in  this  world,  is  impossible,  even  to  God.  God 
is  the  plenitude  of  heaven ;  love  is  .he  plenitude  of  man. 


You  look  at  a  star  for  two  reasons,  because  it  is  luminous, 
and  because  it  is  impenetrable.  You  have  beside  you  a  sweeter 
radiance  and  a  greater  mystery,  woman. 


All  of  us,  whoever  we  may  be,  have  our  respirable  beings. 
We  lack  air  and  we  stifle.  Then  we  die.  To  die  for  lack  of 
love  is  horrible.  Suffocation  of  the  soul. 


When  love  has  fused  and  mingled  two  beings  in  a  sacred  and 
angelic  unity,  the  secret  of  life  has  been  discovered  so  far  as 
they  are  concerned ;  they  are  no  longer  anything  more  than  the 
two  boundaries  of  the  same  destiny;  they  are  no  longer  any- 
thing but  the  two  wings  of  the  same  spirit.  Love,  soar. 


On  the  day  when  a  woman  as  she  passes  before  you  emits 
light  as  she  walks,  you  are  lost,  you  love.  But  one  thing 
remains  for  you  to  do :  to  think  of  her  so  intently  that  she  is 
constrained  to  think  of  you. 


What  love  commences  can  be  finished  by  God  alone. 


True  love  is  in  despair  and  is  enchanted  over  a  glove  lost  or 
a  handkerchief  found,  and  eternity  is  required  for  its  devotion 
and  its  hopes.  It  is  composed  both  of  the  infinitely  great  and 
the  iufinitelv  little. 


134:  SAIlfT-DEJfIB 

If  you  are  a  stone,  be  adamant ;  if  you  are  a  plant,  be  the 
sensitive  plant;  if  you  are  a  man,  be  love. 


Nothing  suffices  for  love.  We  have  happiness,  we  desire 
paradise;  we  possess  paradise,  we  desire  heaven. 

Oh  ye  who  love  each  other,  all  this  is  contained  in  love. 
Understand  how  to  find  it  there.  Love  has  contemplation  as 
well  as  heaven,  and  more  than  heaven,  it  has  voluptuousness. 


"Does  she  still  come  to  the  Luxembourg?"  "No,  sir." 
"This  is  the  church  where  she  attends  mass,  is  it  not  ?"  "She 
no  longer  comes  here."  "Does  she  still  live  in  this  house?" 
"She  has  moved  away."  "Where  has  she  gone  to  dwell?" 
"She  did  not  say/' 

What  a  melancholy  thing  not  to  know  the  address  of  one's 
soul ! 

Love  has  its  childishness,  other  passions  have  their  petti- 
nesses. Shame  on  the  passions  which  belittle  man !  Honor 
to  the  one  which  makes  a  child  of  him ! 


There  is  one  strange  thing,  do  you  know  it  ?  I  dwell  in  the 
night.  There  is  a  being  who  carried  off  my  sky  when  she 
went  away.  

Oh!  would  that  we  were  lying  side  by  side  in  the  same 
grave,  hand  in  hand,  and  from  time  to  time,  in  the  darkness, 
gently  caressing  a  finger, — that  would  suffice  for  my  eternity  ! 


Ye  who  suffer  because  ye  love,  love  yet  more.     To  die  of 
love,  is  to  live  in  it.  

Love.    A  sombre  and  starry  transfiguration  is  mingled  with 
this  torture.     There  is  ecstasy  in  agony. 


THE  END   UK  LIKE  THE  BEGINNING  135 

Oh  joy  of  the  birds !     It  is  because  they  have  nests  that 
they  sing.  

Love  is  a  celestial  respiration  of  the  air  of  paradise. 


Deep  hearts,  sage  minds,  take  life  as  God  has  made  it ;  it  is 
a  long  trial,  an  incomprehensible  preparation  for  an  unknown 
destiny.  This  destiny,  the  true  one,  begins  for  a  man  with  the 
first  step  inside  the  tomb.  Then  something  appears  to  him, 
and  he  begins  to  distinguish  the  definitive.  The  definitive, 
meditate  upon  that  word.  The  living  perceive  the  infinite ; 
the  definitive  permits  itself  to  be  seen  only  by  the  dead.  In 
the  meanwhile,  love  and  suffer,  hope  and  contemplate.  Woe, 
alas !  to  him  who  shall  have  loved  only  bodies,  forms,  appear- 
ances !  Death  will  deprive  him  of  all.  Try  to  love  souls,  you 
will  find  them  again.  

I  encountered  in  the  street,  a  very  poor  young  man  who  was 
in  love.  His  hat  was  old,  his  coat  was  worn,  his  elbows  were 
in  holes;  water  trickled  through  his  shoes,  and  the  stars 
through  his  soul.  

What  a  grand  thing  it  is  to  be  loved !  What  a  far  grander 
thing  it  is  to  love!  The  heart  becomes  heroic,  by  dint  of 
passion.  It  is  no  longer  composed  of  anything  but  what  is 
pure ;  it  no  longer  rests  on  anything  that  is  not  elevated  and 
great.  An  unworthy  thought  can  no  more  germinate  in  it, 
than  a  nettle  on  a  glacier.  The  serene  and  lofty  soul,  inac- 
cessible to  vulgar  passions  and  emotions,  dominating  the 
clouds  and  the  shades  of  this  world,  its  follies,  its  lies,  its 
hatreds,  its  vanities,  its  miseries,  inhabits  the  blue  of  heaven, 
and  no  longer  feels  anything  but  profound  and  subterranean 
shocks  of  destiny,  as  the  crests  of  mountains  feel  the  shocks 
of  earthquake.  

If  there  did  not  exist  some  one  who  loved,  the  sun  would 
become  extinct. 


8A1XT-DENI8 

CHAPTER   V 

COSETTE  AFTER  THE  LETTER 

As  Cosette  read,  she  gradually  fell  into  thought.  At  the 
very  moment  when  she  raised  her  eyes  from  the  last  line  of 
the  note-book,  the  handsome  officer  passed  triumphantly  in 
front  of  the  gate, — it  was  his  hour;  Cosette  thought  him 
hideous. 

She  resumed  her  contemplation  of  the  book.  It  was  written 
in  the  most  charming  of  chirography,  thought  Cosette;  in  the 
same  hand,  but  with  divers  inks,  sometimes  very  black,  again 
whitish,  as  when  ink  has  been  added  to  the  inkstand,  and  con- 
sequently on  different  days.  It  was,  then,  a  mind  which  had 
unfolded  itself  there,  sigh  by  sigh,  irregularly,  without  order, 
without  choice,  without  object,  hap-hazard.  Cosette  had  never 
read  anything  like  it.  This  manuscript,  in  which  she  already 
perceived  more  light  than  obscurity,  produced  upon  her  the 
effect  of  a  half-open  sanctuary.  Each  one  of  these  mysterious 
lines  shone  before  her  eyes  and  inundated  her  heart  with  a 
strange  radiance.  The  education  which  she  had  received  had 
always  talked  to  her  of  the  soul,  and  never  of  love,  very  much 
as  one  might  talk  of  the  firebrand  and  not  of  the  flame.  This 
manuscript  of  fifteen  pages  suddenly  and  sweetly  revealed  to 
her  all  of  love,  sorrow,  destiny,  life,  eternity,  the  beginning, 
the  end.  It  was  as  if  a  hand  had  opened  and  suddenly  flung 
upon  her  a  handful  of  rays  of  light.  In  these  few  lines  she 
felt  a  passionate,  ardent,  generous,  honest  nature,  a  sacred 
will,  an  immense  sorrow,  and  an  immense  despair,  a  suffering 
heart,  an  ecstasy  fully  expanded.  What  was  this  manuscript  ? 
A  letter.  A  letter  without  name,  without  address,  without 
date,  without  signature,  pressing  and  disinterested,  an  enigma 
composed  of  truths,  a  message  of  love  made  to  be  brought  by 
an  angel  and  read  by  a  virgin,  an  appointment  made  beyond 
the  bounds  of  earth,  the  love-letter  of  a  phantom  to  a  shade. 
It  was  an  absent  one,  tranquil  and  dejected,  who  seemed  ready 


THE  END   UNLIKE   THE  HEGIXNING  137 

to  take  refuge  in  death  and  who  sent  to  the  absent  love,  his 
lady,  the  secret  of  fate,  the  key  of  life,  love.  This  had  been 
written  with  one  foot  in  the  grave  and  one  finger  in  heaven. 
These  lines,  which  had  fallen  one  by  one  on  the  paper,  were 
what  might  be  called  drops  of  soul. 

Xow,  from  whom  could  these  pages  come?  Who  could 
have  penned  them? 

Cosette  did  not  hesitate  a  moment.     One  man  only. 

He! 

Day  had  dawned  once  more  in  her  spirit ;  all  had  reap- 
peared. She  felt  an  unheard-of  joy,  and  a  profound  anguish. 
It  was  he !  he  who  had  written !  he  was  there !  it  was  he  whose 
arm  had  been  thrust  through  that  railing !  While  she  was 
forgetful  of  him,  he  had  found  her  again !  But  had  she 
forgotten  him?  No,  never!  She  was  foolish  to  have  thought 
so  for  a  single  moment.  She  had  always  loved  him,  always 
adored  him.  The  fire  had  been  smothered,  and  had  smoul- 
dered for  a  time,  but  she  saw  all  plainly  now ;  it  had  but  made 
headway,  and  now  it  had  burst  forth  afresh,  and  had  inflamed 
her  whole  being.  This  note-book  was  like  a  spark  which  had 
fallen  from  that  other  soul  into  hers.  She  felt  the  conflagra- 
tion starting  up  once  more. 

She  imbued  herself  thoroughly  with  every  word  of  the 
manuscript :  "Oh  yes !"  said  she.  "how  perfectly  I  recognize 
all  that !  That  is  what  I  had  already  read  in  his  eyes."  As 
she  was  finishing  it  for  the  third  time,  Lieutenant  Theodule 
passed  the  gate  once  more,  and  rattled  his  spurs  upon  the  pave- 
ment. Cosette  was  forced  to  raise  her  eyes.  She  thought  him 
insipid,  silly,  stupid,  useless,  foppish,  displeasing,  impertinent, 
and  extremely  ugly.  The  officer  thought  it  his  duty  to  smile 
at  her. 

She  turned  away  as  in  shame  and  indignation.  She  would 
gladly  have  thrown  something  at  his  head. 

She  fled,  re-entered  the  house,  and  shut  herself  up  in  her 
chamber  to  peruse  the  manuscript  once  more,  to  learn  it  by 
heart,  and  to  dream.  When  she  had  thoroughly  mastered  it 
she  kissed  it  and  put  it  in  her  bosom. 


138  SAINT-DENIS 

All  was  over.  Cosettc  had  fallen  back  into  deep,  seraphic 
love.  The  abyss  of  Eden  had  yawned  once  more. 

All  day  long,  Cosette  remained  in  a  sort  of  bewilderment. 
She  scarcely  thought,  her  ideas  were  in  the  state  of  a  tangled 
skein  in  her  brain,  she  could  not  manage  to  conjecture  any- 
thing, she  hoped  through  a  tremor,  what?  vague  things.  She 
dared  make  herself  no  promises,  and  she  did  not  wish  to 
refuse  herself  anything.  Flashes  of  pallor  passed  over  her 
countenance,  and  shivers  ran  through  her  frame.  It  seemed 
to  her,  at  intervals,  that  she  was  entering  the  land  of  chime- 
ras ;  she  said  to  herself :  "Is  this  reality  ?"  Then  she  felt  of  the 
dear  paper  within  her  bosom  under  her  gown,  she  pressed  it 
to  her  heart,  she  felt  its  angles  against  her  flesh ;  and  if  Jean 
Valjean  had  seen  her  at  the  moment,  he  would  have  shuddered 
in  the  presence  of  that  luminous  and  unknown  joy,  which 
overflowed  from  beneath  her  eyelids. — "Oh  yes !"  she  thought, 
"it  is  certainly  he !  This  comes  from  him.  and  is  for  me !" 

And  she  told  herself  that  an  intervention  of  the  angels,  a 
celestial  chance,  had  given  him  back  to  her. 

Oh  transfiguration  of  love !  Oh  dreams !  That  celestial 
chance,  that  intervention  of  the  angels,  was  a  pellet  of  bread 
tossed  by  one  thief  to  another  thief,  from  the  Charlemagne 
Courtyard  to  the  Lion's  Ditch,  over  the  roofs  of  La  Force. 


CHAPTER  VI 

OLD  PEOPLE  ARE  MADE  TO  GO  OUT  OPPORTUNELY 

WHEN  evening  came,  Jean  Valjean  went  out;  Cosette 
dressed  herself.  She  arranged  her  hair  in  the  most  becoming 
manner,  and  she  put  on  a  dress  whose  bodice  had  received 
one  snip  of  the  scissors  too  much,  and  which,  through  this 
slope,  permitted  a  view  of  the  beginning  of  her  throat,  and 
was,  as  young  girls  say,  "a  trifle  indecent."  It  was  not  in  the 
least  indecent,  but  it  was  prettier  than  usual.  She  made  her 
toilet  thus  without  knowing  why  she  did  so. 


THE  END  UNLIKE  THE  BEGINNING  139 

Did  she  mean  to  go  out?    No. 

Was  she  expecting  a  visitor?     No. 

At  dusk,  she  went  down  to  the  garden.  Toussaint  was  busy 
in  her  kitchen,  which  opened  on  the  back  yard. 

She  began  to  stroll  about  under  the  trees,  thrusting  aside 
the  branches  from  time  to  time  with  her  hand,  because  there 
were  some  which  hung  very  low. 

In  this  manner  she  reached  the  bench. 

The  stone  was  still  there. 

She  sat  down,  and  gently  laid  her  white  hand  on  this  stone 
as  though  she  wished  to  caress  and  thank  it. 

All  at  once,  she  experienced  that  indefinable  impression 
which  one  undergoes  when  there  is  some  one  standing  behind 
one,  even  when  she  does  not  see  the  person. 

She  turned  her  head  and  rose  to  her  feet. 

It  was  he. 

His  head  was  bare.  He  appeared  to  have  grown  thin  and 
pale.  His  black  clothes  were  hardly  discernible.  The  twilight 
threw  a  wan  light  on  his  fine  brow,  and  covered  his  eyes  in 
shadows.  Beneath  a  veil  of  incomparable  sweetness,  he  had 
something  about  him  that  suggested  death  and  night.  His 
face  was  illuminated  by  the  light  of  the  dying  day,  and  by  the 
thought  of  a  soul  that  is  taking  flight. 

He  seemed  to  be  not  yet  a  ghost,  and  he  was  no  longer  a 
man. 

He  had  flung  away  his  hat  in  the  thicket,  a  few  paces  dis- 
tant. 

Cosette,  though  ready  to  swoon,  uttered  no  cry.  She  re- 
treated slowly,  for  she  felt  herself  attracted.  He  did  not  stir. 
By  virtue  of  something  ineffable  and  melancholy  which  envel- 
oped him,  she  felt  the  look  in  his  eyes  which  she  could  not  see. 

Cosette,  in  her  retreat,  encountered  a  tree  and  leaned 
against  it.  Had  it  not  been  for  this  tree,  she  would  have 
fallen. 

Then  she  heard  his  voice,  that  voice  which  she  had  really 
never  heard,  barely  rising  above  the  rustle  of  the  leaves,  and 
murmuring: — 


BA1XT-DEKIS 

"Pardon  me,  here  I  am.  My  heart  is  full.  I  could  not  live 
on  as  I  was  living,  and  I  have  come.  Have  you  read  what  I 
placed  there  on  the  bench?  Do  you  recognize  me  at  all? 
Have  no  fear  of  me.  It  is  a  long  time,  you  remember  the  day, 
since  you  looked  at  me  at  the  Luxembourg,  near  the  Gladiator. 
And  the  day  when  you  passed  before  me?  It  was  on  the  IGth 
of  June  and  the  2d  of  July.  It  is  nearly  a  year  ago.  I  have 
not  seen  you  for  a  long  time.  I  inquired  of  the  woman  who 
let  the  chairs,  and  she  told  me  that  she  no  longer  saw  you. 
You  lived  in  the  Rue  de  1'Ouest,  on  the  third  floor,  in  the 
front  apartments  of  a  new  house, — you  see  that  I  know !  I 
followed  you.  What  else  was  there  for  me  to  do?  And  then 
you  disappeared.  I  thought  I  saw  you  pass  once,  while  I  was 
reading  the  newspapers  under  the  arcade  of  the  Odeon.  I  ran 
after  you.  But  no.  It  was  a  person  who  had  a  bonnet  like 
yours.  At  night  I  came  hither.  Do  not  be  afraid,  no  one  sees 
me.  I  come  to  gaze  upon  your  windows  near  at  hand.  I  walk 
very  softly,  so  that  you  may  not  hear,  for  you  might  be 
alarmed.  The  other  evening  I  was  behind  you,  you  turned 
round,  I  fled.  Once,  I  heard  you  singing.  I  was  happy.  Did 
it  affect  you  because  I  heard  you  singing  through  the  shutters? 
That  could  not  hurt  you.  No,  it  is  not  so?  You  see,  you  are 
my  angel !  Let  me  come  sometimes;  I  think  that  I  am  going 
to  die.  If  you  only  knew !  I  adore  you.  Forgive  me,  I  speak 
to  you,  but  1  do  not  know  what  I  am  saying;  I  may  have  dis- 
pleased you ;  have  I  displeased  you  ?" 

"Oh!  my  mother!''  said  she. 

And  she  sank  down  as  though  on  the  point  of  death. 

He  grasped  her,  she  fell,  he  took  her  in  his  arms,  he  pressed 
her  close,  without  knowing  what  he  was  doing.  He  supported 
her,  though  he  was  tottering  himself.  It  was  as  though  bis 
brain  were  full  of  smoke;  lightnings  darted  between  his  lips; 
his  ideas  vanished ;  it  seemed  to  him  that  he  was  accomplishing 
some  religious  act,  and  that  he  was  committing  a  profanation. 
Moreover,  he  had  not  the  least  passion  for  this  lovely  woman 
whose  force  he  felt  against  his  breast.  He  was  beside  himself 
with  love. 


THE  END   UNLIKE   TUE   BEGINNING 

She  took  his  hand  and  laid  it  on  her  heart.  He  felt  the 
paper  there,  he  stammered : — 

"You  love  me,  then  ?" 

She  replied  in  a  voice  so  low  that  it  was  no  longer  anything 
more  than  a  barely  audible  breath : — 

"Hush  !   Thou  knowest  it !" 

And  she  hid  her  blushing  face  on  the  breast  of  the  superb 
and  intoxicated  young  man. 

He  fell  upon  the  bench,  and  she  beside  him.  They  had  no 
words  more.  The  stars  were  beginning  to  gleam.  How  did  it 
come  to  pass  that  their  lips  met?  How  comes  it  to  pass  that 
the  birds  sing,  that  snow  melts,  that  the  rose  unfolds,  that 
May  expands,  that  the  dawn  grows  white  behind  the  black 
trees  on  the  shivering  crest  of  the  hills? 

A  kiss,  and  that  was  all. 

Both  started,  and  gazed  into  the  darkness  with  sparkling 
eyes. 

They  felt  neither  the  cool  night,  nor  the  cold  stone,  nor  the 
damp  earth,  nor  the  wet  grass;  they  looked  at  each  other,  and 
their  hearts  were  full  of  thoughts.  They  had  clasped  hands 
unconsciously. 

She  did  not  ask  him,  she  did  not  even  wonder,  how  he  had 
entered  there,  and  how  he  had  made  his  way  into  the  garden. 
It  seemed  so  simple  to  her  that  he  should  be  there ! 

From  time  to  time,  Marius'  knee  touched  Cosette's  knee,  and 
both  shivered. 

At  intervals,  Cosette  stammered  a  word.  Her  soul  fluttered 
on  her  lips  like  a  drop  of  dew  on  a  flower. 

Little  by  little  they  began  to  talk  to  each  other.  Effusion 
followed  silence,  which  is  fulness.  The  night  was  serene  and 
splendid  overhead.  These  two  beings,  pure  as  spirits,  told 
each  other  everything,  their  dreams,  their  intoxications,  their 
ecstasies,  their  chinueras,  their  weaknesses,  how  they  had 
adored  each  other  from  afar,  how  they  had  longed  for  each 
other,  their  despair  when  the)'  had  ceased  to  see  each  other. 
They  confided  to  each  other  in  an  ideal  intimacy,  which  noth- 
ing could  augment,  their  most  secret  and  most  mysterious 


SAINT-DENIS 

thoughts.  They  related  to  each  other,  with  candid  faith  in 
their  illusions,  all  that  love,  youth,  and  the  remains  of  child- 
hood which  still  lingered  about  them,  suggested  to  their  minds. 
Their  two  hearts  poured  themselves  out  into  each  other  in  such 
wise,  that  at  the  expiration  of  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  it  was  the 
young  man  who  had  the  young  girl's  soul,  and  the  young  girl 
who  had  the  young  man's  soul.  Each  became  permeated  with 
the  other,  they  were  enchanted  with  each  other,  they  dazzled 
each  other. 

When  they  had  finished,  when  they  had  told  each  other 
everything,  she  laid  her  head  on  his  shoulder  and  asked  him : — 

"What  is  your  name  ?" 

"My  name  is  Marius,"  said  he.    "And  yours?" 

"My  name  is  Cosette." 


BOOK  SIXTH.— LITTLE  GAVROCHE 
CHAPTER   I 

THE  MALICIOUS  PLAYFULNESS  OF  THE  WIND 

SINCE  1823,  when  the  tavern  of  Montfermeil  was  on  the 
way  to  shipwreck  and  was  being  gradually  engulfed,  not  in 
the  abyss  of  a  bankruptcy,  but  in  the  cesspool  of  petty  debts, 
the  Thenardier  pair  had  had  two  other  children ;  both  males. 
That  made  five;  two  girls  and  three  boys. 

Madame  Thenardier  had  got  rid  of  the  last  two,  while  they 
were  still  young  and  very  small,  with  remarkable  luck. 

Got  rid  of  is  the  word.  There  was  but  a  mere  fragment  of 
nature  in  that  woman.  A  phenomenon,  by  the  way,  of  which 
there  is  more  than  one  example  extant.  Like  the  Marechale  de 
La  Mothe-Houdancourt,  the  Thenardier  was  a  mother  to  her 
daughters  only.  There  her  maternity  ended.  Her  hatred  of 
the  human  race  began  with  her  own  sons.  In  the  direction  of 
her  sons  her  evil  disposition  was  uncompromising,  and  her 
heart  had  a  lugubrious  wall  in  that  quarter.  As  the  reader 
has  seen,  she  detested  the  eldest ;  she  cursed  the  other  two. 
Why?  Because.  The  most  terrible  of  motives,  the  most  un- 
answerable of  retorts — Because.  "I  have  no  need  of  a  litter  of 
squalling  brats,"  said  this  mother. 

Let  us  explain  how  the  Thenardiers  had  succeeded  in  getting 
rid  of  their  last  two  children ;  and  even  in  drawing  profit  from 
the  operation. 

The  woman  Magnon,  who  was  mentioned  a  few  pages  fur- 
ther back,  was  the  same  one  who  had  succeeded  in  making  old 
Gillenormand  support  the  two  children  which  she  had  had. 
She  lived  on  the  Quai  des  Celestins,  at  the  corner  of  this  an- 


cient  street  of  the  Petit-Muse  which  afforded  her  the  oppor- 
tunity of  changing  her  evil  repute  into  good  odor.  The  reader 
will  remember  the  great  epidemic  of  croup  which  ravaged  the 
river  districts  of  the  Seine  in  Paris  thirty-five  years  ago,  and 
of  which  science  took  advantage  to  make  experiments  on  a 
grand  scale  as  to  the  efficacy  of  inhalations  of  alum,  so  bene- 
ficially replaced  at  the  present  day  by  the  external  tincture  of 
iodine.  During  this  epidemic,  the  Magnon  lost  both  her  boys, 
who  were  still  very  young,  one  in  the  morning,  the  other  in  the 
evening  of  the  same  day.  This  was  a  blow.  These  children 
were  precious  to  their  mother;  they  represented  eighty  francs 
a  month.  These  eighty  francs  were  punctually  paid  in  the 
name  of  M.  Gillenormand,  by  collector  of  his  rents,  M.  Barge, 
a  retired  tip-staff,  in  the  Rue  du  Roi-de-Sicile.  The  children 
dead,  the  income  was  at  an  end.  The  Magnon  sought  an  ex- 
pedient. In  that  dark  free-masonry  of  evil  of  which  she 
formed  a  part,  everything  is  known,  all  secrets  are  kept,  and 
all  lend  mutual  aid.  Magnon  needed  two  children;  the  The- 
nardiers  had  two.  The  same  sex,  the  same  age.  A  good  ar- 
rangement for  the  one,  a  good  investment  for  the  other.  The 
little  Thenardiers  became  little  Magnons.  Magnon  quitted 
the  Quai  des  Celestins  and  went  to  live  in  the  Rue  Clocheperce. 
In  Paris,  the  identity  which  binds  an  individual  to  himself  is 
broken  between  one  street  and  another. 

The  registry  office  being  in  no  way  warned,  raised  no  objec- 
tions, and  the  substitution  was  effected  in  the  most  simple 
manner  in  the  world.  Only,  the  Thenardier  exacted  for  this 
loan  of  her  children,  ten  francs  a  month,  which  Magnon  prom- 
ised to  pay,  and  which  she  actually  did  pay.  It  is  unnecessary 
to  add  that  M.  Gillenormand  continued  to  perform  his  com- 
pact. He  came  to  see  the  children  every  six  months.  He  did 
not  perceive  the  change.  "Monsieur,"  Magnon  said  to  him, 
"how  much  they  resemble  you !" 

Thenardier,  to  whom  avatars  were  easy,  seized  this  occa- 
sion to  become  Jondrette.  His  two  daughters  and  Gavroche 
had  hardly  had  time  to  discover  that  they  had  two  little 
brothers.  When  a  certain  degree  of  misery  is  reached,  one  is 


LITTLE  UAVROCUK  145 

overpowered  with  a  sort  of  spectral  indifference,  and  one  re- 
gards human  beings  as  though  they  were  spectres.  Your  near- 
est relations  are  often  no  more  for  you  than  vague  shadowy 
forms,  barely  outlined  against  a  nebulous  background  of  life 
and  easily  confounded  again  with  the  invisible. 

On  the  evening  of  the  day  when  she  had  handed  over  her 
two  little  ones  to  Magnon,  with  express  intention  of  re- 
nouncing them  forever,  the  Thenardier  had  felt,  or  had 
appeared  to  feel,  a  scruple.  She  said  to  her  husband:  "But 
this  is  abandoning  our  children !"  Thenardier,  masterful  and 
phlegmatic,  cauterized  the  scruple  with  this  saying:  "Jean 
Jacques  Rousseau  did  even  better!"  From  scruples,  the 
mother  proceeded  to  uneasiness:  "But  what  if  the  police 
were  to  annoy  us?  Tell  me,  Monsieur  Thenardier,  is  what 
we  have  done  permissible?"  Thenardier  replied:  "Everything 
is  permissible.  No  one  will  see  anything  but  true  blue  in  it. 
Besides,  no  one  has  any  interest  in  looking  closely  after  chil- 
dren who  have  not  a  sou." 

Magnon  was  a  sort  of  fashionable  woman  in  the  sphere  of 
crime.  She  was  careful  about  her  toilet.  She  shared  her 
lodgings,  which  were  furnished  in  an  affected  and  wretched 
style,  with  a  clever  gallicized  English  thief.  This  English 
woman,  who  had  become  a  naturalized  Parisienne,  recom- 
mended by  very  wealthy  relations,  intimately  connected  with 
the  medals  in  the  Library  and  Mademoiselle  Mar's  diamonds, 
became  celebrated  later  on  in  judicial  accounts.  She  was 
called  Mamselle  Miss. 

The  two  little  creatures  who  had  fallen  to  Magnon  had  no 
reason  to  complain  of  their  lot.  Recommended  by  the  eighty 
francs,  they  were  well  cared  for,  as  is  everything  from  which 
profit  is  derived ;  they  were  neither  badly  clothed,  nor  badly 
fed;  they  were  treated  almost  like  "little  gentlemen, "- 
better  by  their  false  mother  than  by  their  real  one.  Mag- 
non played  the  lady,  and  talked  no  thieves'  slang  in  their 
presence. 

Thus  passed  several  years.  Thenardier  augured  well  from 
the  fact.  One  day,  he  chanced  to  say  to  Magnon  as  she  handed 


146  SAINT-DENIS 

him  his  monthly  stipend  of  ten  francs :  "The  father  must  give 
them  some  education." 

All  at  once,  these  two  poor  children,  who  had  up  to  that 
time  been  protected  tolerably  well,  even  by  their  evil  fate, 
were  abruptly  hurled  into  life  and  forced  to  begin  it  for  them- 
selves. 

A  wholesale  arrest  of  malefactors,  like  that  in  the  Jondrette 
garret,  necessarily  complicated  by  investigations  and  subse- 
quent incarcerations,  is  a  veritable  disaster  for  that  hideous 
and  occult  counter-society  which  pursues  its  existence  beneath 
public  society;  an  adventure  of  this  description  entails  all 
sorts  of  catastrophes  in  that  sombre  world.  The  Thenardier 
catastrophe  involved  the  catastrophe  of  Magnon. 

One  day,  a  short  time  after  Magnon  had  handed  to  fiponine 
the  note  relating  to  the  Rue  Plumet,  a  sudden  raid  was  made 
by  the  police  in  the  Rue  Clocheperce;  Magnon  was  seized,  as 
was  also  Mamselle  Miss;  and  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  house, 
which  was  of  a  suspicious  character,  were  gathered  into  the 
net.  While  this  was  going  on,  the  two  little  boys  were  playing 
in  the  back  yard,  and  saw  nothing  of  the  raid.  When  they 
tried  to  enter  the  house  again,  they  found  the  door  fastened 
and  the  house  empty.  A  cobbler  opposite  called  them  to  him, 
and  delivered  to  them  a  paper  which  "their  mother"  had  left 
for  them.  On  this  paper  there  was  an  address :  M.  Barge,  col- 
lector of  rents,  Rue  du  Roi-de-Sicile,  No.  8.  The  proprietor 
of  the  stall  said  to  them:  "You  cannot  live  here  any  longer. 
Go  there.  It  is  near  by.  The  first  street  on  the  left.  Ask 
your  way  from  this  paper." 

The  children  set  out,  the  elder  leading  the  younger,  and 
holding  in  his  hand  the  paper  which  was  to  guide  them.  It 
was  cold,  and  his  benumbed  little  fingers  could  not  close  very 
firmly,  and  they  did  not  keep  a  very  good  hold  on  the  paper. 
At  the  corner  of  the  Rue  Clocheperce,  a  gust  of  wind  tore  it 
from  him,  and  as  night  was  falling,  the  child  was  not  able  to 
find  it  again. 

They  began  to  wander  aimlessly  through  the  streets. 


LITTLE  OAVROCHE  147 


CHAPTER   II 

IN   WHICH   LITTLE   OAVROCHE   EXTRACTS   PROFIT   FROM    NAPO- 
LEON THE  GREAT 

SPRING  in  Paris  is  often  traversed  by  harsh  and  piercing 
breezes  which  do  not  precisely  chill  but  freeze  one ;  these  north 
winds  which  sadden  the  most  beautiful  days  produce  exactly 
the  effect  of  those  puffs  of  cold  air  which  enter  a  warm  room 
through  the  cracks  of  a  badly  fitting  door  or  window.  It 
seems  as  though  the  gloomy  door  of  winter  had  remained  ajar, 
and  as  though  the  wind  were  pouring  through  it.  In  the 
spring  of  1832,  the  epoch  when  the  first  great  epidemic  of  this 
century  broke  out  in  Europe,  these  north  gales  were  more 
harsh  and  piercing  than  ever.  It  was  a  door  even  more  glacial 
than  that  of  winter  which  was  ajar.  It  was  the  door  of  the 
sepulchre.  In  these  winds  one  felt  the  breath  of  the 
cholera. 

From  a  meteorological  point  of  view,  these  cold  winds  pos- 
sessed this  peculiarity,  that  they  did  not  preclude  a  strong 
electric  tension.  Frequent  storms,  accompanied  by  thunder 
and  lightning,  burst  forth  at  this  epoch. 

One  evening,  when  these  gales  were  blowing  rudely,  to  such 
a  degree  that  January  seemed  to  have  returned  and  that  the 
bourgeois  had  resumed  their  cloaks,  Little  Gavroche,  who  was 
always  shivering  gayly  under  his  rags,  was  standing  as  though 
in  ecstasy  before  a  wig-maker's  shop  in  the  vicinity  of  the 
Orme-Saint-Gervais.  He  was  adorned  with  a  woman's 
woollen  shawl,  picked  up  no  one  knows  where,  and  which  he 
had  converted  into  a  neck  comforter.  Little  Gavroche  ap- 
peared to  be  engaged  in  intent  admiration  of  a  wax  bride,  in  a 
low-necked  dress,  and  crowned  with  orange-flowers,  who  was 
revolving  in  the  windo  v,  and  displaying  her  smile  to  passers- 
by,  between  two  argand  lamps;  but  in  reality,  he  was  taking 
an  observation  of  the  shop,  in  order  to  discover  whether  he 
could  not  "prig"  from  the  shop-front  a  cake  of  soap,  which 


148  8  AI  XT  DEN  1 8 

he  would  then  proceed  to  sell  for  a  sou  to  a  "hair-dresser"  in 
the  suburbs.  He  had  often  managed  to  breakfast  off  of  such  a 
roll.  He  called  his  species  of  work,  for  which  he  possessed 
special  aptitude,  "shaving  barbers." 

While  contemplating  the  bride,  and  eyeing  the  cake  of  soap, 
he  muttered  between  his  teeth :  "Tuesday.  It  was  not  Tues- 
day. Was  it  Tuesday  ?  Perhaps  it  was  Tuesday.  Yes,  it  was 
Tuesday." 

Xo  one  has  ever  discovered  to  what  this  monologue  re- 
ferred. 

Yes,  perchance,  this  monologue  had  some  connection  with 
the  last  occasion  on  which  he  had  dined,  three  days  before, 
for  it  was  now  Friday. 

The  barber  in  his  shop,  which  was  warmed  by  a  good  stove, 
was  shaving  a  customer  and  casting  a  glance  from  time  to 
time  at  the  enemy,  that  freezing  and  impudent  street  urchin 
both  of  whose  hands  were  in  his  pockets,  but  whose  mind  was 
evidently  unsheathed. 

While  Gavroche  was  scrutinizing  the  shop-window  and  the 
cakes  of  Windsor  soap,  two  children  of  unequal  stature,  very 
neatly  dressed,  and  still  smaller  than  himself,  one  apparently 
about  seven  years  of  age,  the  other  five,  timidly  turned  the 
handle  and  entered  the  shop,  with  a  request  for  something  or 
other,  alms  possibly,  in  a  plaintive  murmur  which  resembled 
a  groan  rather  than  a  prayer.  They  both  spoke  at  once,  and 
their  words  were  unintelligible  because  sobs  broke  the  voice 
of  the  younger,  and  the  teeth  of  the  elder  were  chattering  with 
cold.  The  barber  wheeled  round  with  a  furious  look,  and 
without  abandoning  his  razor,  thrust  back  the  elder  with  his 
left  hand  and  the  younger  with  his  knee,  and  slammed  his 
door,  saying:  "The  idea  of  coming  in  and  freezing  everybody 
for  nothing !" 

The  two  children  resumed  their  march  in  tears.  In  the 
meantime,  a  cloud  had  risen ;  it  had  begun  to  rain. 

Little  Gavroche  ran  after  them  and  accosted  them  : — 

"What's  the  matter  with  you,  brats?" 

"We  don't  know  where  we  are  to  sleep,"  replied  the  elder. 


LITTLE  OAVROCHE  }4<) 

"Is  that  all  ?"  said  Gavroche.  "A  great  matter,  truly.  The 
idea  of  bawling  about  that.  They  must  be  greenies  !" 

And  adopting,  in  addition  to  his  superiority,  which  was 
rather  bantering,  an  accent  of  tender  authority  and  gentle 
patronage : — 

"Come  along  with  me,  young  'uns!" 

"Yes,  sir,"  said  the  elder. 

And  the  two  children  followed  him  as  they  would  have 
followed  an  archbishop.  They  had  stopped  crying. 

Gavroche  led  them  up  the  Rue  Saint-Antoine  in  the  direc- 
tion of  the  Bastille. 

As  Gavroche  walked  along,  he  cast  an  indignant  backward 
glance  at  the  barber's  shop. 

"That  fellow  has  no  heart,  the  whiting,"  1  he  muttered. 
"He's  an  Englishman." 

A  woman  who  caught  sight  of  these  three  marching  in  a 
file,  with  Gavroche  at  their  head,  burst  into  noisy  laughter. 
This  laugh  was  wanting  in  respect  towards  the  group. 

"Good  day,  Mamselle  Omnibus,"  said  Gavroche  to  her. 

An  instant  later,  the  wig-maker  occurred  to  his  mind  once 
more,  and  he  added  : — 

"I  am  making  a  mistake  in  the  beast;  he's  not  a  whiting, 
he's  a  serpent.  Barber,  I'll  go  and  fetch  a  locksmith,  and  I'll 
have  a  bell  hung  to  your  tail." 

This  wig-maker  had  rendered  him  aggressive.  As  he  strode 
over  a  gutter,  he  apostrophized  a  bearded  portress  who  was 
worthy  to  meet  Faust  on  the  Brocken,  and  who  had  a  broom  in 
her  hand. 

"Madam,"  said  he,  "so  you  are  going  out  with  your  horse?" 

And  thereupon,  he  spattered  the  polished  boots  of  a  pedes- 
trian. 

"You  scamp !"  shouted  the  furious  pedestrian. 

Gavroche  elevated  his  nose  above  his  shawl. 

"Is  Monsieur  complaining?" 

"Of  you !"  ejaculated  the  man. 

lMcrlan:  a  sobriquet  given  to  hairdressers  because  they  are  white 
with  powder. 


150  8AWT-DENI8 

"The  office  is  closed,"  said  Gavroche,  "I  do  not  receive  any 
more  complaints." 

In  the  meanwhile,  as  he  went  on  up  the  street,  he  perceived 
a  beggar-girl,  thirteen  or  fourteen  years  old,  and  clad  in  so 
short  a  gown  that  her  knees  were  visible,  lying  thoroughly 
chilled  under  a  porte-cochere.  The  little  girl  was  getting  to  be 
too  old  for  such  a  thing.  Growth  does  play  these  tricks.  The 
petticoat  becomes  short  at  the  moment  when  nudity  becomes 
indecent. 

"Poor  girl !"  said  Gavroche.  "She  hasn't  even  trousers. 
Hold  on,  take  this." 

And  unwinding  all  the  comfortable  woollen  which  he  had 
around  his  neck,  he  flung  it  on  the  thin  and  purple  shoulders 
of  the  beggar-girl,  where  the  scarf  became  a  shawl  once  more. 

The  child  stared  at  him  in  astonishment,  and  received  the 
shawl  in  silence.  When  a  certain  stage  of  distress  has  been 
reached  in  his  misery,  the  poor  man  no  longer  groans  over  evil, 
no  longer  returns  thanks  for  good. 

That  done :  "Brrr !"  said  Gavroche,  who  was  shivering  more 
than  Saint  Martin,  for  the  latter  retained  one-half  of  his 
cloak. 

At  this  brrr!  the  downpour  of  rain,  redoubled  in  its  spite, 
became  furious.  The  wicked  skies  punish  good  deeds. 

"Ah,  come  now !"  exclaimed  Gavroche,  "what's  the  mean- 
ing of  this  ?  It's  re-raining !  Good  Heavens,  if  it  goes  on 
like  this,  I  shall  stop  my  subscription." 

And  he  set  out  on  the  march  once  more. 

"It's  all  right,"  he  resumed,  casting  a  glance  at  the  beggar- 
girl,  as  she  coiled  up  under  the  shawl,  "she's  got  a  famous 
peel." 

And  looking  up  at  the  clouds  he  exclaimed: — 

"Caught !" 

The  two  children  followed  close  on  his  heels. 

As  they  were  passing  one  of  these  heavy  grated  lattices, 
which  indicate  a  baker's  shop,  for  bread  is  put  behind  bars 
like  gold,  Gavroche  turned  round : — 

"Ah,  by  the  way,  brats,  have  we  dined?" 


LITTLE  OAVROCHE 

"Monsieur,"  replied  the  elder,  "we  have  had  nothing  to  eat 
since  this  morning." 

"So  you  have  neither  father  nor  mother?"  resumed  Gav- 
roche  majestically. 

"Excuse  us,  sir,  we  have  a  papa  and  a  mamma,  but  we 
don't  know  where  they  are." 

"Sometimes  that's  better  than  knowing  where  they  are," 
said  Gavroche,  who  was  a  thinker. 

"We  have  been  wandering  about  these  two  hours,"  continued 
the  elder,  "we  have  hunted  for  things  at  the  corners  of  the 
streets,  but  we  have  found  nothing." 

"I  know,"  ejaculated  Gavroche,  "it's  the  dogs  who  eat 
everything." 

He  went  on,  after  a  pause: — 

"Ah !  we  have  lost  our  authors.  We  don't  know  what  we 
have  done  with  them.  This  should  not  be,  gamins.  It's  stupid 
to  let  old  people  stray  off  like  that.  Come  now !  we  must  have 
a  snooze  all  the  same." 

However,  he  asked  them  no  questions.  What  was  more 
simple  than  that  they  should  have  no  dwelling  place ! 

The  elder  of  the  two  children,  who  had  almost  entirely 
recovered  the  prompt  heedlessness  of  childhood,  uttered  this 
exclamation : — 

"It's  queer,  all  the  same.  Mamma  told  us  that  she  would 
take  us  to  get  a  blessed  spray  on  Palm  Sunday." 

"Bosh,"  said  Gavroche. 

"Mamma,"  resumed  the  elder,  "is  a  lady  who  lives  with 
Mamselle  Miss." 

"Tanflute !"  retorted  Gavrocho. 

Meanwhile  he  had  halted,  and  for  the  last  two  minutes  he 
had  been  feeling  and  fumbling  in  all  sorts  of  nooks  which  his 
rags  contained. 

At  last  he  tossed  his  head  with  an  air  intended  to  be  merely 
satisfied,  but  which  was  triumphant,  in  reality. 

"Let  us  be  calm,  young  'uns.     Here's  supper  for  three." 

And  from  one  of  his  pockets  he  drew  forth  a  sou. 

Without  allowing  the  two  urchins  time  for  amazement,  he 


152  SAI  XT-DEMS 

pushed  both  of  them  before  him  into  the  baker's  shop,  and 
flung  his  sou  on  the  counter,  crying: — 

"Boy !  five  centimes'  worth  of  bread." 

The  baker,  who  was  the  proprietor  in  person,  took  up  a  loaf 
and  a  knife. 

"In  three  pieces,  my  boy !"  went  on  Gavroche. 

And  he  added  with  dignity: — 

"There  are  three  of  us." 

And  seeing  that  the  baker,  after  scrutinizing  the  three 
customers,  had  taken  down  a  black  loaf,  he  thrust  his  finger 
far  up  his  nose  with  an  inhalation  as  imperious  as  though 
he  had  had  a  pinch  of  the  great  Frederick's  snuff  on  the  tip 
of  his  thumb,  and  hurled  this  indignant  apostrophe  full  in 
the  baker's  face: — 

"Keksekga  ?" 

Those  of  our  readers  who  might  be  tempted  to  espy  in  this 
interpellation  of  Gavroche's  to  the  baker  a  Russian  or  a  Polish 
word,  or  one  of  those  savage  cries  which  the  Yoways  and  the 
Botocudos  hurl  at  each  other  from  bank  to  bank  of  a  river, 
athwart  the  solitudes,  are  warned  that  it  is  a  word  which  they 
[our  readers]  utter  every  day,  and  which  takes  the  place  of  the 
phrase :  "Qu'est-ce  que  c'est  que  cela  ?"  The  baker  under- 
stood perfectly,  and  replied  : — 

"Well !  It's  bread,  and  very  good  bread  of  the  second 
quality." 

"You  mean  larton  brutal  [black  bread]!"  retorted  Gav- 
roche, calmly  and  coldly  disdainful.  "White  bread,  boy  !  white 
bread  [larton  savonne]  !  I'm  standing  treat." 

The  baker  could  not  repress  a  smile,  and  as  he  cut  the  white 
bread  he  surveyed  them  in  a  compassionate  way  which  shocked 
Gavroche. 

"Come,  now,  baker's  boy !"  said  he,  "what  are  you  taking 
our  measure  like  that  for?" 

All  three  of  them  placed  end  to  end  would  have  hardly  made 
a  measure. 

When  the  bread  was  cut,  the  baker  threw  the  sou  into  his 
drawer,  and  Gavroche  said  to  the  two  children: — 


LITTLE  GAVROCBE  153 

"Grub  away." 

The  little  boys  stared  at  him  in  surprise. 

Gavroche  began  to  laugh. 

"Ah !  hullo,  that's  so !  they  don't  understand  yet,  they're 
too  small." 

And  he  repeated: — 

"Eat  away." 

At  the  same  time,  he  held  out  a  piece  of  bread  to  each  of 
them. 

And  thinking  that  the  elder,  who  seemed  to  him  the  more 
worthy  of  his  conversation,  deserved  some  special  encourage- 
ment and  ought  to  be  relieved  from  all  hesitation  to  satisfy  his 
appetite,  he  added,  as  he  handed  him  the  largest  share : — 

"Ram  that  into  your  muzzle." 

One  piece  was  smaller  than  the  others ;  he  kept  this  for 
himself. 

The  poor  children,  including  Gavroche,  were  famished.  As 
they  tore  their  bread  apart  in  big  mouthfuls,  they  blocked  up 
the  shop  of  the  baker,  who,  no\v  that  they  had  paid  their 
money,  looked  angrily  at  them. 

"Let's  go  into  the  street  again/'  said  Gavroche. 

They  set  off  once  more  in  the  direction  of  the  Bastille. 

From  time  to  time,  as  they  passed  the  lighted  shop-windows, 
the  smallest  halted  to  look  at  the  time  on  a  leaden  watch  which 
was  suspended  from  his  neck  by  a  cord. 

"Well,  he  is  a  very  green  'un,"  said  Gavroche. 

Then,  becoming  thoughtful,  he  muttered  between  his 
teeth : — 

"All  the  same,  if  I  had  charge  of  the  babes  I'd  lock  'em  up 
better  than  that." 

Just  as  they  were  finishing  their  morsel  of  bread,  and  had 
reached  the  angle  of  that  gloomy  Rue  des  Ballets,  at  the  other 
end  of  which  the  low  and  threatening  wicket  of  La  Force  was 
visible: — 

"Hullo,  is  that  you,  Gavroche?"  said  some  one. 

"Hullo,  is  that  you,  Montparnasse ?"  said  Gavroche. 

A  man  had  just  accosted  the  street  urchin,  and  the  man  was 


154  SAINT-DENIS 

no  other  than  Montparnasse  in  disguise,  with  blue  spectacles, 
but  recognizable  to  Gavroche. 

"The  bow-wows !"  went  on  Gavroche,  "you've  got  a  hide 
the  color  of  a  linseed  plaster,  and  blue  specs  like  a  doctor. 
You're  putting  on  style,  'pon  my  word !" 

"Hush !"  ejaculated  Montparnasse,  "not  so  loud." 

And  he  drew  Gavroche  hastily  out  of  range  of  the  lighted 
shops. 

The  two  little  ones  followed  mechanically,  holding  each 
other  by  the  hand. 

When  they  were  ensconced  under  the  arch  of  a  porte- 
cochere,  sheltered  from  the  rain  and  from  all  eyes: — 

"Do  you  know  where  I'm  going?"  demanded  Montparnasse 

"To  the  Abbey  of  Ascend-with-Regret,"1  replied  Gavroche. 

"Joker !" 

And  Montparnasse  went  on : — 

"I'm  going  to  find  Babet." 

"Ah!"  exclaimed  Gavroche,  "so  her  name  is  Babet." 

Montparnasse  lowered  his  voice : — 

"Not  she,  he." 

"Ah !     Babet." 

"Yes,  Babet." 

"I  thought  he  was  buckled." 

"He  has  undone  the  buckle,"  replied  Montparnasse. 

And  he  rapidly  related  to  the  gamin  how,  on  the  morning  of 
that  very  day,  Babet,  having  been  transferred  to  La  Concier- 
gerie,  had  made  his  escape,  by  turning  to  the  left  instead  of  to 
the  right  in  "the  police  office." 

Gavroche  expressed  his  admiration  for  this  skill. 

"What  a  dentist !"  he  cried. 

Montparnasse  added  a  few  details  as  to  Babet's  flight,  and 
ended  with: — 

"Oh !    That's  not  all." 

Gavroche,  as  he  listened,  had  seized  a  cane  that  Montpar- 
nasse held  in  his  hand,  and  mechanically  pulled  at  the  upper 
part,  and  the  blade  of  a  dagger  made  its  appearance. 
lThe  scaffold. 


LITTLE  0  AV  ROC  HE  155 

"Ah !"  he  exclaimed,  pushing  the  dagger  back  in  haste, 
"you  have  brought  along  your  gendarme  disguised  as  a  bour- 
geois." 

Montparnasse  winked. 

"The  deuce !"  resumed  Gavroche,  "so  you're  going  to  have 
a  bout  with  the  bobbies?" 

"You  can't  tell,"  replied  Montparnasse  with  an  indifferent 
air.  "It's  always  a  good  thing  to  have  a  pin  about  one." 

Gavroche  persisted : — 

"What  are  you  up  to  to-night?" 

Again  Montparnasse  took  a  grave  tone,  and  said,  mouthing 
every  syllable:  "Things." 

And  abruptly  changing  the  conversation: — 

"By  the  way!" 

"What?" 

"Something  happened  t'other  day.  Fancy.  I  meet  a  bour- 
geois. He  makes  me  a  present  of  a  sermon  and  his  purse.  I 
put  it  in  my  pocket.  A  minute  later,  I  feel  in  my  pocket. 
There's  nothing  there." 

"Except  the  sermon,"  said  Gavroche. 

"But  you,"  went  on  Montparnasse,  "where  are  you  bound 
for  now?" 

Gavroche  pointed  to  his  two  proteges,  and  said: — 

"I'm  going  to  put  these  infants  to  bed." 

"Whereabouts  is  the  bed?" 

"At  my  house." 

"Where's  your  house?" 

"At  my  house." 

"So  you  have  a  lodging?" 

"Yes,  I  have." 

"And  where  is  your  lodging?" 

"In  the  elephant,"  said  Gavroche. 

Montparnasse.  though  not  naturally  inclined  to  astonish- 
ment, could  not  restrain  an  exclamation. 

"In  the  elephant !" 

"Well,  yes,  in  the  elephant!"  retorted  Gavroche.  "Kek- 
c.aa?" 


15G  SAINT-DENIS 

This  is  another  word  of  the  language  which  no  one  writes, 
and  which  every  one  speaks. 

Kekgaa  signifies:  Quest  que  c'est  que  cela  a?  [What's  the 
matter  with  that  ?] 

The  urchin's  profound  remark  recalled  Montparnasse  to 
calmness  and  good  sense.  He  appeared  to  return  to  better 
sentiments  with  regard  to  Gavroche's  lodging. 

"Of  course,"  said  he,  "yes,  the  elephant.  Is  it  comfortable 
there  ?" 

"Very,"  said  Gavroche.  "It's  really  bully  there.  There 
ain't  any  draughts,  as  there  are  under  the  bridges." 

"How  do  you  get  in?" 

"Oh,  I  get  in." 

"So  there  is  a  hole?"  demanded  Montparnasse. 

"Parbleu !  I  should  say  so.  But  you  mustn't  tell.  It's 
between  the  fore  legs.  The  bobbies  haven't  seen  it." 

"And  you  climb  up?     Yes,  I  understand." 

"A  turn  of  the  hand,  eric,  crac.  and  it's  all  over,  no  one 
there." 

After  a  pause,  Gavroche  added: — 

"I  shall  have  a  ladder  for  these  children." 

Montparnasse  burst  out  laughing: — 

"Where  the  devil  did  you  pick  up  those  young  'uns  ?" 

Gavroche  replied  with  great  simplicity : — 

"They  are  some  brats  that  a  wig-maker  made  me  a  present 
of." 

Meanwhile,  Montparnasse  had  fallen  to  thinking: — 

"You  recognized  me  very  readily,"  he  muttered. 

He  took  from  his  pocket  two  small  objects  which  were  noth- 
ing more  than  two  quills  wrapped  in  cotton,  and  thrust  one 
up  each  of  his  nostrils.  This  gave  him  a  different  nose. 

"That  changes  you,"  remarked  Gavroche,  "you  are  less 
homely  so,  you  ought  to  keep  them  on  all  the  time." 

Montparnasse  was  a  handsome  fellow,  but  Gavroche  was  a 
tease. 

"Seriously,"  demanded  Montparnaese,  "how  do  you  like  me 
so?" 


LITTLE  GAVROCHE  157 

The  Bound  of  his  voice  was  different  also.  In  a  twinkling, 
Montparnasse  had  become  unrecognizable. 

"Oh !  Do  play  Porrichinelle  for  us !"  exclaimed  Gavroche. 

The  two  children,  who  had  not  been  listening  up  to  this 
point,  being  occupied  themselves  in  thrusting  their  fingers  up 
their  noses,  drew  near  at  this  name,  and  stared  at  Montpar- 
nasse with  dawning  joy  and  admiration. 

Unfortunately,  Montparnasse  was  troubled. 

He  laid  his  hand  on  Gavroche's  shoulder,  and  said  to  him, 
emphasizing  his  words :  "Listen  to  what  I  tell  you,  boy !  if  I 
were  on  the  square  with  my  dog,  my  knife,  and  my  wife,  and 
if  you  were  to  squander  ten  sous  on  me,  I  wouldn't  refuse  to 
work,  but  this  isn't  Shrove  Tuesday." 

This  odd  phrase  produced  a  singular  effect  on  the  gamin. 
He  wheeled  round  hastily,  darted  his  little  sparkling  eyes 
about  him  with  profound  attention,  and  perceived  a  police 
sergeant  standing  with  his  back  to  them  a  few  paces  off.  Gav- 
roche allowed  an :  "Ah  !  good  !"  to  escape  him,  but  immediately 
suppressed  it,  and  shaking  Montparnasse's  hand : — 

"Well,  good  evening,"  said  he,  "I'm  going  off  to  my  ele- 
phant with  my  brats.  Supposing  that  you  should  need  me 
some  night,  you  can  come  and  hunt  me  up  there.  I  lodge  on 
the  entresol.  There  is  no  porter.  You  will  inquire  for  Mon- 
sieur Gavroche." 

"Very  good,"  said  Montparnasse. 

And  they  parted,  Montparnasse  betaking  himself  in  the  di- 
rection of  the  Grevc,  and  Gavroche  towards  the  Bastille.  The 
little  one  of  five,  dragged  along  by  his  brother  who  was  dragged 
by  Gavroche,  turned  his  head  back  several  times  to  watch 
"Porrichinelle"  as  he  went. 

The  ambiguous  phrase  by  means  of  which  Montparnasse 
had  warned  Gavroche  of  the  presence  of  the  policeman,  con- 
tained no  other  talisman  than  the  assonance  dig  repeated  five 
or  six  times  in  different  forms.  This  syllable,  dig,  uttered 
alone  or  artistically  mingled  with  the  words  of  a  phrase, 
means:  "Take  care,  we  can  no  longer  talk  freely."  There  was 
besides,  in  Montparnasse's  sentence,  a  literary  beauty  which 


BAIXT-DEXIB 

was  lost  upon  Gavroche,  that  is  mon  doguc,  ma  dague  et  ma 
digue,  a  slang  expression  of  the  Temple,  which  signifies  my 
clog,  my  knife,  and  my  wife,  greatly  in  vogue  among  clowns 
and  the  red-tails  in  the  great  century  when  Moliere  wrote  and 
Callot  drew. 

Twenty  years  ago,  there  was  still  to  be  seen  in  the  south- 
west corner  of  the  Place  de  la  Bastille,  near  the  basin  of  the 
canal,  excavated  in  the  ancient  ditch  of  the  fortress-prison,  a 
singular  monument,  which  has  already  been  effaced  from  the 
memories  of  Parisians,  and  which  deserved  to  leave  some  trace, 
for  it  was  the  idea  of  a  "member  of  the  Institute,  the  General- 
in-chief  of  the  army  of  Egypt." 

We  say  monument,  although  it  was  only  a  rough  model.  But 
this  model  itself,  a  marvellous  sketch,  the  grandiose  skeleton 
of  an  idea  of  Napoleon's,  which  successive  gusts  of  wind  have 
carried  away  and  thrown,  on  each  occasion,  still  further  from 
us,  had  become  historical  and  had  acquired  a  certain  definite- 
ness  which  contrasted  with  its  provisional  aspect.  It  was  an 
elephant  forty  feet  high,  constructed  of  timber  and  masonry, 
bearing  on  its  back  a  tower  which  resembled  a  house,  formerly 
painted  green  by  some  dauber,  and  now  painted  black  by 
heaven,  the  wind,  and  time.  In  this  deserted  and  unprotected 
corner  of  the  place,  the  broad  brow  of  the  colossus,  his  trunk, 
his  tusks,  his  tower,  his  enormous  crupper,  his  four  feet,  like 
columns  produced,  at  night,  under  the  starry  heavens,  a  sur- 
prising and  terrible  form.  It  was  a  sort  of  symbol  of  popular 
force.  It  was  sombre,  mysterious,  and  immense.  It  was 
some  mighty,  visible  phantom,  one  knew  not  what,  standing 
erect  beside  the  invisible  spectre  of  the  Bastille. 

Few  strangers  visited  this  edifice,  no  passer-by  looked  at  it. 
It  was  falling  into  ruins;  every  season  the  plaster  which  de- 
tached itself  from  its  sides  formed  hideous  wounds  upon  it. 
"The  axlilcs,"  as  the  expression  ran  in  elegant  dialect,  had 
forgotten  it  ever  since  1814.  There  it  stood  in  its  corner, 
melancholy,  sick,  crumbling,  surrounded  by  a  rotten  palisade, 
soiled  continually  by  drunken  coachmen;  cracks  meandered 
athwart  its  belly,  a  lath  projected  from  its  tail,  tall  grass 


LITTLE   (1AVROCHE 

flourished  between  its  legs;  and,  as  the  level  of  the  place  had 
been  rising  all  around  it  for  a  space  of  thirty  years,  by  that 
slow  and  continuous  movement  which  insensibly  elevates  the 
soil  of  large  towns,  it  stood  in  a  hollow,  and  it  looked  as 
though  the  ground  were  giving  way  beneath  it.  It  was  un- 
clean, despised,  repulsive,  arid  superb,  ugly  in  the  eyes  of  the 
bourgeois,  melancholy  in  the  eyes  of  the  thinker.  There  was 
something  about  it  of  the  dirt  which  is  on  the  point  of  being 
swept  out,  and  something  of  the  majesty  which  is  on  the  point 
of  being  decapitated.  As  we  have  said,  at  night,  its  aspect 
changed.  Night  is  the  real  element  of  everything  that  is  dark. 
As  soon  as  twilight  descended,  the  old  elephant  became  trans- 
figured; he  assumed  a  tranquil  and  redoubtable  appearance  in 
the  formidable  serenity  of  the  shadows.  Being  of  the  past,  he 
belonged  to  night;  and  obscurity  was  in  keeping  with  his 
grandeur. 

This  rough,  squat,  heavy,  hard,  austere,  almost  mis-shapen, 
but  assuredly  majestic  monument,  stamped  with  a  sort  of 
magnificent  and  savage  gravity,  has  disappeared,  and  left  to 
reign  in  peace,  a  sort  of  gigantic  stove,  ornamented  with  its 
pipe,  which  has  replaced  the  sombre  fortress  with  its  nine 
towers,  very  much  as  the  bourgeoisie  replaces  the  feudal 
classes.  It  is  quite  natural  that  a  stove  should  be  the  symbol 
of  an  epoch  in  which  a  pot  contains  power.  This  epoch  will 
pass  away,  people  have  already  begun  to  understand  that,  if 
there  can  be  force  in  a  boiler,  there  can  be  no  force  except  in 
the  brain;  in  other  words,  that  which  leads  and  drags  on  the 
world,  is  not  locomotives,  but  ideas.  Harness  locomotives 
to  ideas, — that  is  well  done;  but  do  not  mistake  the  horse  for 
the  rider. 

At  all  events,  to  return  to  the  Place  do  la  Bastille,  the  arch- 
itect of  this  elephant  succeeded  in  making  a  grand  tiling  out 
of  plaster;  the  architect  of  the  stove  has  succeeded  in  making  a 
pretty  thing  out  of  bronze. 

This  stove-pipe,  which  has  been  baptized  by  a  sonorous 
name,  and  called  the  column  of  July,  this  monument  of  a 
revolution  that  miscarried,  was  still  enveloped  in  1832,  in  an 


1(50  8AIXT-DEXIS 

immense  shirt  of  woodwork,  which  we  regret,  for  our  part, 
and  by  a  vast  plank  enclosure,  which  completed  the  task  of 
isolating  the  elephant. 

It  was  towards  this  corner  of  the  place,  dimly  lighted  by 
the  reflection  of  a  distant  street  lamp,  that  the  gamin  guided 
his  two  "brats." 

The  reader  must  permit  us  to  interrupt  ourselves  here  and 
to  remind  him  that  we  are  dealing  with  simple  reality,  and 
that  twenty  years  ago,  the  tribunals  were  called  upon  to 
judge,  under  the  charge  of  vagabondage,  and  mutilation 
of  a  public  monument,  a  child  who  had  been  caught  asleep 
in  this  very  elephant  of  the  Bastille.  This  fact  noted,  we 
proceed. 

On  arriving  in  the  vicinity  of  the  colossus,  Gavroche  com- 
prehended the  effect  which  the  infinitely  great  might  produce 
on  the  infinitely  small,  and  said : — 

"Don't  be  scared,  infants." 

Then  he  entered  through  a  gap  in  the  fence  into  the  ele- 
phant's enclosure  and  helped  the  young  ones  to  clamber 
throujh  the  breach.  The  two  children,  somewhat  frightened, 
followed  Gavroche  without  uttering  a  word,  and  confided 
themselves  to  this  little  Providence  in  rags  which  had  given 
them  bread  and  had  promised  them  a  shelter. 

There,  extended  along  the  fence,  lay  a  ladder  which  by  day 
served  the  laborers  in  the  neighboring  timber-yard.  Gav- 
roche raised  it  with  remarkable  vigor,  and  placed  it  against 
one  of  the  elephant's  forelegs.  Near  the  point  where  the 
ladder  ended,  a  sort  of  black  hole  in  the  belly  of  the  colossus 
could  be  distinguished. 

Gavroche  pointed  out  the  ladder  and  the  hole  to  his  guests, 
and  said  to  them : — 

"Climb  up  and  go  in." 

The  two  little  boys  exchanged  terrified  glances. 

"You're  afraid,  brats!"  exclaimed  Gavroche. 

And  he  added : — 

"You  shall  see !" 

He  clasped  the  rough  leg  of  the  elephant,  and  in  a  twinkling, 


LITTLE  GAV ROCHE 

without  deigning  to  make  use  of  the  ladder,  he  had  reached  the 
aperture.  He  entered  it  as  an  adder  slips  through  a  crevice, 
and  disappeared  within,  and  an  instant  later,  the  two  children 
saw  his  head,  which  looked  pale,  appear  vaguely,  on  the  edge 
of  the  shadowy  hole,  like  a  wan  and  whitish  spectre. 

"Well!"  he  exclaimed,  "climb  up,  young  'uns !  You'll  see 
how  snug  it  is  here !  Come  up,  you !"  he  said  to  the  elder, 
"I'll  lend  you  a  hand." 

The  little  fellows  nudged  each  other,  the  gamin  frightened 
and  inspired  them  with  confidence  at  one  and  the  same  time, 
and  then,  it  was  raining  very  hard.  The  elder  one  undertook 
the  risk.  The  younger,  on  seeing  his  brother  climbing  up, 
and  himself  left  alone  between  the  paws  of  this  huge  beast, 
felt  greatly  inclined  to  cry,  but  he  did  not  dare. 

The  elder  lad  climbed,  with  uncertain  steps,  up  the  rungs  of 
the  ladder;  Gavroche,  in  the  meanwhile,  encouraging  him  with 
exclamations  like  a  fencing-master  to  his  pupils,  or  a  muleteer 
to  his  mules. 

"Don't  be  afraid  ! — That's  it ! — Come  on  ! — Put  your  feet 
there  ! — Give  us  your  hand  here  ! — Boldly !" 

And  when  the  child  was  within  reach,  he  seized  him  sud- 
denly and  vigorously  by  the  arm,  and  pulled  him  towards 
him. 

"Nabbed !"  said  he. 

The  brat  had  passed  through  the  crack. 

"Now,"  said  Gavroche,  "wait  for  me.  Be  so  good  as  to  take 
a  seat,  Monsieur." 

And  making  his  way  out  of  the  hole  as  he  had  entered  it, 
he  slipped  down  the  elephant's  leg  with  the  agility  of  a 
monkey,  landed  on  his  feet  in  the  grass,  grasped  the  child  of 
five  round  the  body,  and  planted  him  fairly  in  the  middle  of 
the  ladder,  then  he  began  to  climb  up  behind  him,  shouting  to 
the  elder : — 

"I'm  going  to  boost  him,  do  you  tug." 

And  in  another  instant,  the  small  lad  was  pushed,  dragged, 
pulled,  thrust,  stuffed  into  the  hole,  before  he  had  time  to  re- 
cover himself,  and  Gavroche,  entering  behind  him,  and  re- 


162  SAINT-DENIS 

pulsing  the  ladder  with  a  kick  which  sent  it  flat  on  the  grass, 
began  to  clap  his  hands  and  to  cry: — 

"Here  we  are !    Long  live  General  Lafayette !" 

This  explosion  over,  he  added  : — 

"Now,  young  'uns,  you  are  in  my  house." 

Gavroche  was  at  home,  in  fact. 

Oh,  unforeseen  utility  of  the  useless !  Charity  of  great 
things  !  Goodness  of  giants !  This  huge  monument,  which 
had  embodied  an  idea  of  the  Emperor's,  had  become  the  box 
of  a  street  urchin.  The  brat  had  been  accepted  and  sheltered 
by  the  colossus.  The  bourgeois- decked  out  in  their  Sunday 
finery  who  passed  the  elephant  of  the  Bastille,  were  fond  of 
saying  as  they  scanned  it  disdainfully  with  their  prominent 
eyes :  "What's  the  good  of  that  ?"  It  served  to  save  from  the 
cold,  the  frost,  the  hail,  and  rain,  to  shelter  from  the  winds  of 
winter,  to  preserve  from  slumber  in  the  mud  which  produces 
fever,  and  from  slumber  in  the  snow  which  produces  death, 
a  little  being  who  had  no  father,  no  mother,  no  bread,  no 
clothes,  no  refuge.  It  served  to  receive  the  innocent  whom 
society  repulsed.  It  served  to  diminish  public  crime.  It  was 
a  lair  open  to  one  against  whom  all  doors  were  shut.  It  seemed 
as  though  the  miserable  old  mastodon,  invaded  by  vermin  and 
oblivion,  covered  with  warts,  with  mould,  and  ulcers,  tottering, 
worm-eaten,  abandoned,  condemned,  a  sort  of  mendicant  co- 
lossus, asking  alms  in  vain  with  a  benevolent  look  in  the  midst 
of  the  cross-roads,  had  taken  pity  on  that  other  mendicant,  the 
poor  pygmy,  who  roamed  without  shoes  to  his  feet,  without  a 
roof  over  his  head,  blowing  on  his  fingers,  clad  in  rags,  fed  on 
rejected  scraps.  That  was  what  the  elephant  of  the  Bastille 
was  good  for.  This  idea  of  Napoleon,  disdained  by  men,  had 
been  taken  back  by  God.  That  which  had  been  merely  illus- 
trious, had  become  august.  In  order  to  realize  his  thought, 
the  Emperor  should  have  had  porphyry,  brass,  iron,  gold,  mar- 
ble ;  the  old  collection  of  planks,  beams  and  plaster  sufficed  for 
God.  The  Emperor  had  had  the  dream  of  a  genius;  in  that 
Titanic  elephant,  armed,  prodigious,  with  trunk  uplifted, 
bearing  its  tower  and  scattering  on  all  sides  its  merry  and 


LITTLE  QAVROCUE 

vivifying  waters,  he  wished  to  incarnate  the  people.  God 
had  done  a  grander  thing  with  it,  he  had  lodged  a  child  there. 

The  hole  through  which  Gavroche  had  entered  was  a  hreach 
which  was  hardly  visible  from  the  outside,  being  concealed,  as 
we  have  stated,  beneath  the  elephant's  belly,  and  so  narrow 
that  it  was  only  cats  and  homeless  children  who  could  pass 
through  it. 

"Let's  begin,"  said  Gavroche,  "by  telling  the  porter  that  we 
are  not  at  home." 

And  plunging  into  the  darkness  with  the  assurance  of  a 
person  who  is  well  acquainted  with  his  apartments,  he  took  a 
plank  and  stopped  up  the  aperture. 

Again  Gavroche  plunged  into  the  obscurity.  The  children 
heard  the  crackling  of  the  match  thrust  into  the  phosphoric 
bottle.  The  chemical  match  was  not  yet  in  existence ;  at  that 
epoch  the  Fumade  steel  represented  progress. 

A  sudden  light  made  them  blink ;  Gavroche  had  just  man- 
aged to  ignite  one  of  those  bits  of  cord  dipped  in  resin  which 
are  called  cellar  rats.  The  cellar  rat,  which  emitted  more 
smoke  than  light,  rendered  the  interior  of  the  elephant  con- 
fusedly visible. 

Gavroche's  two  guests  glanced  about  them,  and  the  sensa- 
tion which  they  experienced  was  something  like  that  which  one 
would  feel  if  shut  up  in  the  great  tun  of  Heidelberg,  or,  better 
still,  like  what  Jonah  must  have  felt  in  the  biblical  belly  of 
the  whale.  An  entire  and  gigantic  skeleton  appeared  envel- 
oping them.  Above,  a  long  brown  beam,  whence  started  at 
regular  distances,  massive,  arching  ribs,  represented  the  ver- 
tebral column  with  its  sides,  stalactites  of  plaster  depended 
from  them  like  entrails,  and  vast  spiders'  webs  stretching  from 
side  to  side,  formed  dirty  diaphragms.  Here  and  there,  in 
the  corners,  were  visible  large  blackish  spots  which  had  the 
appearance  of  being  alive,  and  which  changed  places  rapidly 
with  nn  abrupt  and  frightened  movement. 

Fragments  which  had  fallen  from  the  elephant's  back  into 
his  belly  had  tilled  up  the  cavity,  so  that  it  was  possible  to  walk 
upon  it  as  on  a  floor. 


SAINT-DENIS 

The  smaller  child  nestled  up  against  his  brother,  and  whis- 
pered to  him : — 

"It's  black." 

This  remark  drew  an  exclamation  from  Gavroche.  The 
petrified  air  of  the  two  brats  rendered  some  shock  necessary. 

"What's  that  you  are  gabbling  about  there?"  he  exclaimed. 
"Are  you  scoffing  at  me ?  Are  you  turning  up  your  noses?  Do 
you  want  the  Tuileries  ?  Are  you  brutes  ?  Come,  say  !  I  warn 
you  that  I  don't  belong  to  the  regiment  of  simpletons.  Ah, 
come  now,  are  you  brats  from  the  Pope's  establishment?" 

A  little  roughness  is  good  in  cases  of  fear.  It  is  reassuring. 
The  two  children  drew  close  to  Gavroche. 

Gavroche,  paternally  touched  by  this  confidence,  passed 
from  grave  to  gentle,  and  addressing  the  smaller : — 

"Stupid."  said  he,  accenting  the  insulting  word,  with  a 
caressing  intonation,  "it's  outside  that  it  is  black.  Outside 
it's  raining,  here  it  does  not  rain;  outside  it's  cold,  here 
there's  not  an  atom  of  wind  ;  outside  there  are  heaps  of  people, 
here  there's  no  one;  outside  there  ain't  even  the  moon,  here 
there's  my  candle,  confound  it !" 

The  two  children  began  to  look  upon  the  apartment  with 
less  terror;  but  Gavroche  allowed  them  no  more  time  for 
contemplation. 

"Quick,"  said  he. 

And  he  pushed  them  towards  what  we  are  very  glad  to  be 
able  to  call  the  end  of  the  room. 

There  stood  his  bed. 

Gavroche's  bed  was  complete ;  that  is  to  say,  it  had  a  mat- 
tress, a  blanket,  and  an  alcove  with  curtains. 

The  mattress  was  a  straw  mat,  the  blanket  a  rather  large 
strip  of  gray  woollen  stuff,  very  warm  and  almost  new.  This 
is  what  the  alcove  consisted  of: — 

Three  rather  long  poles,  thrust  into  and  consolidated,  with 
the  rubbish  which  formed  the  floor,  that  is  to  say,  the  belly 
of  the  elephant,  two  in  front  and  one  behind,  and  united  by 
a  rope  at  their  summits,  so  as  to  form  a  pyramidal  bundle. 
This  cluster  supported  a  trellis-work  of  brass  wire  which  was 


LITTLE  GAV ROCHE  165 

simply  placed  upon  it,  but  artistically  applied,  and  hold  by 
fastenings  of  iron  wire,  so  that  it  enveloped  all  three  holes.  A 
row  of  very  .heavy  stones  kept  this  network  down  to  the  floor 
so  that  nothing  could  pass  under  it.  This  grating  was  noth- 
ing else  than  a  piece  of  the  brass  screens  with  which  aviaries 
are  covered  in  menageries.  Gavroche's  bed  stood  as  in  a  cage, 
behind  this  net.  The  whole  resembled  an  Esquimaux  tent. 

This  trellis-work  took  the  place  of  curtains. 

Gavroche  moved  aside  the  stones  which  fastened  the  net 
down  in  front,  and  the  two  folds  of  the  net  which  lapped  over 
each  other  fell  apart. 

"Down  on  all  fours,  brats !"  said  Gavroche. 

He  made  his  guests  enter  the  cage  with  great  precaution, 
then  he  crawled  in  after  them,  pulled  the  stones  together,  and 
closed  the  opening  hermetically  again. 

All  three  had  stretched  out  on  the  mat.  Gavroche  still  had 
the  cellar  rat  in  his  hand. 

"Now,"  said  he,  "go  to  sleep!  I'm  going  to  suppress  the 
candelabra." 

"Monsieur,"  the  elder  of  the  brothers  asked  Gavroche, 
pointing  to  the  netting,  "what's  that  for?" 

"That,"  answered  Gavroche  gravely,  "is  for  the  rats.  Go 
to  sleep !" 

Nevertheless,  he  felt  obliged  to  add  a  few  words  of  instruc- 
tion for  the  benefit  of  these  young  creatures,  and  he  con- 
tinued:— 

"It's  a  thing  from  the  Jardin  des  Plantes.  It's  used  for 
fierce  animals.  There's  a  whole  shopful  of  them  there.  All 
you've  got  to  do  is  to  climb  over  a  wall,  crawl  through  a 
window,  and  pass  through  a  door.  You  can  get  as  much  as 
you  want." 

As  he  spoke,  he  wrapped  the  younger  one  up  bodily  in  a  fold 
of  the  blanket,  and  the  little  one  murmured: — 

"Oh  !  how  good  that  is  !     It's  warm  !" 

Gavroche  cast  a  pleased  eye  on  the  blanket. 

"That's  from  the  Jardin  des  Plantes,  too,"  said  he.  "I 
took  that  from  the  monkeys." 


1(56  8AIVT-DENIB 

And,  pointing  out  to  the  eldest  the  mat  on  which 
he  was  lying,  a  very  thick  and  admirably  made  mat,  he 
added : — 

"That  belonged  to  the  giraffe." 

After  a  pause  he  went  on : — 

"The  beasts  had  all  these  things.  I  took  them  away  from 
them.  It  didn't  trouble  them.  I  told  them:  'It's  for  the 
elephant.' ' 

He  paused,  and  then  resumed: — 

"You  crawl  over  the  walls  and  you  don't  care  a  straw  for 
the  government.  So  there  now  !" 

The  two  children  gazed  with  timid  and  stupefied  respect  on 
this  intrepid  and  ingenious  being,  a  vagabond  like  themselves, 
isolated  like  themselves,  frail  like  themselves,  who  had  some- 
thing admirable  and  all-powerful  about  him,  who  seemed 
supernatural  to  them,  and  whose  physiognomy  was  composed 
of  all  the  grimaces  of  an  old  mountebank,  mingled  with  the 
most  ingenuous  and  charming  smiles. 

"Monsieur,"  ventured  the  elder  timidly,  "you  are  not  afraid 
of  the  police,  then  ?" 

Gavroche  contented  himself  with  replying: — 

"Brat !     Nobody  says  'police,'  they  say  'bobbies/  '; 

The  smaller  had  his  eyes  wide  open,  but  he  said  nothing. 
As  he  was  on  the  edge  of  the  mat,  the  elder  being  in  the 
middle,  Gavroche  tucked  the  blanket  round  him  as  a  mother 
might  have  done,  and  heightened  the  mat  under  his  head  with 
old  rags,  in  such  a  way  as  to  form  a  pillow  for  the  child.  Then 
he  turned  to  the  elder : — 

"Hey!    We're  jolly  comfortable  here,  ain't  we?" 

"Ah,  yes !"  replied  the  elder,  gazing  at  Gavroche  with  the 
expression  of  a  saved  angel. 

The  two  poor  little  children  who  had  been  soaked  through, 
began  to  grow  warm  once  more. 

"Ah.  by  the  way,"  continued  Gavroche,  "what  were  you 
bawling  about?" 

And  pointing  out  the  little  one  to  his  brother: — 

"A  mite  like  that,  I've  nothing  to  say  about,  but  the  idea  of 


LITTLE  UAVROCI1E  107 

a  big  fellow  like  you  crying!  It's  idiotic;  you  looked  like  a 
calf." 

"Gracious,"  replied  the  child,  "we  have  no  lodging." 

"Bother !"  retorted  Gavroche,  "you  don't  say  'lodgings,'  you 
say  'crib.' '' 

"And  then,  we  were  afraid  of  being  alone  like  that  at 
night." 

"You  don't  say  'night,'  you  say  'darkmans.' " 

"Thank  you,  sir,"  said  the  child. 

"Listen,"  went  on  Gavroche,  "you  must  never  bawl  again 
over  anything.  I'll  take  care  of  you.  You  shall  see  what 
fun  we'll  have.  In  summer,  we'll  go  to  the  Glaciere  with 
JSTavet.  one  of  my  pals,  we'll  bathe  in  the  Gare,  we'll  run  stark- 
naked  in  front  of  the  rafts  on  the  bridge  at  Austerlitz, — that 
makes  the  laundresses  raging.  They  scream,  they  get  mad, 
and  if  you  only  knew  how  ridiculous  they  are !  We'll  go  and 
see  the  man-skeleton.  And  then  I'll  take  you  to  the  play.  I'll 
take  you  to  see  Frederick  Lemaitre.  I  have  tickets,  I  know 
some  of  the  actors,  I  even  played  in  a  piece  once.  There  were 
a  lot  of  us  fellers,  and  we  ran  under  a  cloth,  and  that  made 
the  sea.  I'll  get  you  an  engagement  at  my  theatre.  We'll  go 
to  see  the  savages.  They  ain't  real,  those  savages  ain't.  They 
wear  pink  tights  that  go  all  in  wrinkles,  and  you  can  see  where 
their  elbows  have  been  darned  with  white.  Then,  we'll  go  to 
the  Opera.  We'll  get  in  with  the  hired  applauders.  The 
Opera  claque  is  well  managed.  I  wouldn't  associate  with  the 
claque  on  the  boulevard.  At  the  Opera,  just  fancy!  some  of 
them  pay  twenty  sous,  but  they're  ninnies.  They're  called 
dishclouts.  And  then  we'll  go  to  see  the  guillotine  work.  I'll 
show  you  the  executioner.  He  lives  in  the  Rue  dos  Marais. 
Monsieur  Sanson.  He  has  a  letter-box  at  his  door.  Ah  !  we'll 
have  famous  fun  !" 

At  that  moment  a  drop  of  wax  fell  on  Gavroche's  finger, 
and  recalled  him  to  the  realities  of  life. 

"The  deuce!"  said  he.  "there's  the  wick  giving  out.  Atten- 
tion !  I  can't  spend  more  than  a  sou  a  month  on  my  lighting. 
When  a  body  goes  to  bed,  he  must  sleep.  We  haven't  the  time 


168  SAINT-DENIS 

to  read  M.  Paul  de  Kock's  romances.  And  besides,  the  light 
might  pass  through  the  cracks  of  the  porte-cochere,  and  all 
the  bobbies  need  to  do  is  to  see  it." 

"And  then,"  remarked  the  elder  timidly, — he  alone  dared 
talk  to  Gavroche,  and  reply  to  him,  "a  spark  might  fall 
in  the  straw,  and  we  must  look  out  and  not  burn  the  house 
down." 

"People  don't  say  'burn  the  house  down,' "  remarked  Gav- 
roche, "they  say  'blaze  the  crib.' ': 

The  storm  increased  in  violence,  and  the  heavy  downpour 
beat  upon  the  back  of  the  colossus  amid  claps  of  thunder. 
"You're  taken  in,  rain!"  said  Gavroche.  "It  amuses  me  to 
hear  the  decanter  run  down  the  legs  of  the  house.  Winter  is  a 
stupid ;  it  wastes  its  merchandise,  it  loses  its  labor,  it  can't  wet 
us,  and  that  makes  it  kick  up  a  row,  old  water-carrier  that 
it  is." 

This  allusion  to  the  thunder,  all  the  consequences  of  which 
Gavroche,  in  his  character  of  a  philosopher  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  accepted,  was  followed  by  a  broad  flash  of  lightning, 
so  dazzling  that  a  hint  of  it  entered  the  belly  of  the  elephant 
through  the  crack.  Almost  at  the  same  instant,  the  thunder 
rumbled  with  great  fury.  The  two  little  creatures  uttered  a 
shriek,  and  started  up  so  eagerly  that  the  network  came  near 
being  displaced,  but  Gavroche  turned  his  bold  face  to  them, 
and  took  advantage  of  the  clap  of  thunder  to  burst  into  a 
laugh. 

"Calm  down,  children.  Don't  topple  over  the  edifice. 
That's  fine,  first-class  thunder;  all  right.  That's  no  slouch 
of  a  streak  of  lightning.  Bravo  for  the  good  God !  Deuce 
take  it !  It's  almost  as  good  as  it  is  at  the  Ambigu." 

That  said,  he  restored  order  in  the  netting,  pushed  the  two 
children  gently  down  on  the  bed,  pressed  their  knees,  in  order 
to  stretch  them  out  at  full  length,  and  exclaimed : — 

"Since  the  good  God  is  lighting  his  candle,  I  can  blow  out 
mine.  Now,  babes,  now,  my  young  humans,  you  must  shut 
your  peepers.  It's  very  bad  not  to  sleep.  It'll  make  you 
swallow  the  strainer,  or,  as  they  say  in  fashionable  society, 


LITTLE  QAVROCnE  100 

stink  in  the  gullet.  Wrap  yourself  up  well  in  the  hide!  I'm 
going  to  put  out  the  light.  Are  you  ready?" 

"Yes."  murmured  the  elder,  "I'm  all  right.  I  seem  to  have 
feathers  under  my  head." 

"People  don't  say  'head/  "  cried  Gavroche,  "they  say  'nut'." 

The  two  children  nestled  close  to  each  other.  Gavroche 
finished  arranging  them  on  the  mat,  drew  the  blanket  up  to 
their  very  ears,  then  repeated,  for  the  third  time,  his  injunc- 
tion in  the  hieratical  tongue : — 

"Shut  your  peepers !" 

And  he  snuffed  out  his  tiny  light. 

Hardly  had  the  light  been  extinguished,  when  a  peculiar 
trembling  began  to  affect  the  netting  under  which  the  three 
children  lay. 

It  consisted  of  a  multitude  of  dull  scratches  which  produced 
a  metallic  sound,  as  if  claws  and  teeth  were  gnawing  at  the 
copper  wire.  This  was  accompanied  by  all  sorts  of  little 
piercing  cries. 

The  little  five-year-old  boy,  on  hearing  this  hubbub  over- 
head, and  chilled  with  terror,  jogged  his  brother's  elbow;  but 
the  elder  brother  had  already  shut  his  peepers,  as  Gavroche 
had  ordered.  Then  the  little  one.  who  could  no  longer  control 
his  terror,  questioned  Gavroche,  but  in  a  very  low  tone,  and 
with  bated  breath: — 

"Sir  ?" 

"Hey?"  said  Gavroche,  who  had  just  closed  his  eyes. 

"What  is  that?" 

"It's  the  rats,"  replied  Gavroche. 

And  he  laid  his  head  down  on  the  mat  again. 

The  rats,  in  fact,  who  swarmed  by  thousands  in  the  carcass 
of  the  elephant,  and  who  were  the  living  black  spots  which  we 
have  already  mentioned,  had  been  held  in  awe  by  the  flame  of 
the  candle,  so  long  as  it  had  been  lighted;  but  as  soon  as  the 
cavern,  which  was  the  same  as  their  city,  had  returned  to 
darkness,  scenting  what  the  good  story-teller  lYrrault  calls 
"fresh  meat."  they  bad  hurled  themselves  in  throngs  ou 
Gavroche's  tent,  had  climbed  to  the  top  of  it,  and  had  begun  to 


170 

bite  the  meshes  as  though  seeking  to  pierce  this  new-fangled 
trap. 

Still  the  little  one  could  not  sleep. 

"Sir?"  he  began  again. 

"Hey  ?"  said  Gavroche. 

"What  are  rats  ?" 

"They  are  mice." 

This  explanation  reassured  the  child  a  little.  He  had  seen 
white  mice  in  the  course  of  his  life,  and  he  was  not  afraid  of 
them.  Nevertheless,  he  lifted  up  his  voice  once  more. 

"Sir?" 

"Hey?"  said  Gavroche  again. 

"Why  don't  you  have  a  cat?" 

"I  did  have  one,"  replied  Gavroche,  "I  brought  one  here, 
but  they  ate  her." 

This  second  explanation  undid  the  work  of  the  first,  and  the 
little  fellow  began  to  tremble  again. 

The  dialogue  between  him  and  Gavroche  began  again  for 
the  fourth  time: — 

"Monsieur  ?" 

"Hey?" 

"Who  was  it  that  was  eaten?" 

"The  cat." 

"And  who  ate  the  cat  ?" 

"The  rats." 

"The  mice  ?" 

"Yes,  the  rats." 

The  child,  in  consternation,  dismayed  at  the  thought  of 
mice  which  ate  cats,  pursued  : — 

"Sir,  would  those  mice  eat  us?" 

"Wouldn't  they  just !"  ejaculated  Gavroche. 

The  child's  terror  had  reached  its  climax.  But  Gavroche 
added : — 

"Don't  be  afraid.  They  can't  get  in.  And  besides.  I'm 
here !  Here,  catch  hold  of  my  hand.  Hold  your  tongue  and 
shut  your  peepers !" 

At  the  same  time  Gavroche  grasped  the  little  fellow's  hand 


LITTLE  GAVROCHE 

across  his  brother.  The  child  pressed  the  hand  close  to  him. 
and  felt  reassured.  Courage  and  strength  have  these  myste- 
rious ways  of  communicating  themselves.  Silence  reigned 
round  them  once  more,  the  sound  of  their  voices  had  fright- 
ened off  the  rats;  at  the  expiration  of  a  few  minutes,  they 
came  raging  hack,  but  in  vain,  the  three  little  fellows  were 
fast  asleep  and  heard  nothing  more. 

The  hours  of  the  night  fled  away.  Darkness  covered  the 
vast  Place  de  la  Bastille.  A  wintry  gale,  which  mingled  with 
the  rain,  blew  in  gusts,  the  patrol  searched  all  the  doorways, 
alleys,  enclosures,  and  obscure  nooks,  and  in  their  search  for 
nocturnal  vagabonds  they  passed  in  silence  before  the  ele- 
phant; the  monster,  erect,  motionless,  staring  open-eyed  into 
the  shadows,  had  the  appearance  of  dreaming  happily  over 
his  good  deed ;  and  sheltered  from  heaven  and  from  men  the 
three  poor  sleeping  children. 

In  order  to  understand  what  is  about  to  follow,  the  reader 
must  remember,  that,  at  that  epoch,  the  Bastile  guard-house 
was  situated  at  the  other  end  of  the  square,  and  that  what  took 
place  in  the  vicinity  of  the  elephant  could  neither  be  seen  nor 
heard  by  the  sentinel. 

Towards  the  end  of  that  hour  which  immediately  precedes 
the  dawn,  a  man  turned  from  the  Rue  Saint-Antoine  at  a  run, 
made  the  circuit  of  the  enclosure  of  the  column  of  July,  and 
glided  between  the  palings  until  he  was  underneath  the  belly 
of  the  elephant.  If  any  light  had  illuminated  that  man.  it 
might  have  been  divined  from  the  thorough  manner  in  which 
he  was  soaked  that  he  had  passed  the  night  in  the  rain. 
Arrived  beneath  the  elephant,  he  uttered  a  peculiar  cry,  which 
did  not  belong  to  any  human  tongue,  and  which  a  paroquet 
alone  could  have  imitated.  Twice  he  repeated  this  cry.  of 
whose  orthography  the  following  barely  conveys  an  idea : — 

"Kirikikiou !" 

At  the  second  cry,  a  clear,  young,  merry  voice  responded 
from  the  belly  of  the  elephant : — 

"Yes !" 

Almost  immediately,  the  plank  which  closed  the  hole  was 


372  BAIXT-DEMK 

drawn  aside,  and  gave  passage  to  a  child  who  descended  the 
elephant's  leg,  and  fell  briskly  near  the  man.  It  was  Gav- 
roche.  The  man  was  Montparnasse. 

As  for  his  cry  of  Kirikikiou, — that  was,  doubtless,  what  the 
child  had  meant,  when  he  said : — 

"You  will  ask  for  Monsieur  Gavroche." 

On  hearing  it,  he  had  waked  with  a  start,  had  crawled  out 
of  his  "alcove,"  pushing  apart  the  netting  a  little,  and  care- 
fully drawing  it  together  again,  then  he  had  opened  the  trap, 
and  descended. 

The  man  and  the  child  recognized  each  other  silently  amid 
the  gloom :  Montparnasse  confined  himself  to  the  remark : — 

<rVVe  need  you.    Come,  lend  us  a  hand." 

The  lad  asked  for  no  further  enlightenment. 

"I'm  with  you,"  said  he. 

And  both  took  their  way  towards  the  Rue  Saint-Antoine, 
whence  Montparnasse  had  emerged,  winding  rapidly  through 
the  long  file  of  market-gardeners'  carts  which  descend  towards 
the  markets  at  that  hour. 

The  market-gardeners,  crouching,  half-asleep,  in  their 
wagons,  amid  the  salads  and  vegetables,  enveloped  to  their 
very  eyes  in  their  mufflers  on  account  of  the  beating  rain,  did 
not  even  glance  at  these  strange  pedestrians. 

CHAPTER    III 

THE  VICISSITUDES  OF  FLIGHT 

THIS  is  what  had  taken  place  that  same  night  at  the  IA 
Force : — 

An  escape  had  been  planned  between  Babet,  Brujon,  Guele- 
mer,  and  Thenardier,  although  Thenardier  was  in  close  con- 
finement. Babet  had  arranged  the  matter  for  his  own  benefit, 
on  the  same  day,  as  the  reader  has  seen  from  Montparnasse's 
account  to  Gavroche.  Montparnasse  was  to  help  them  from 
outside. 


LITTLE  OAV ROCHE  173 

Brujon,  after  having  passed  a  month  in  the  punishment  cell, 
had  had  time,  in  the  first  place,  to  weave  a  rope,  in  the  second, 
to  mature  a  plan.  In  former  times,  those  severe  places  where 
the  discipline  of  the  prison  delivers  the  convict  into  his  own 
hands,  were  composed  of  four  stone  walls,  a  stone  ceiling,  a 
flagged  pavement,  a  camp  bed,  a  grated  window,  and  a  door 
lined  with  iron,  and  were  called  dungeons;  but  the  dungeon 
was  judged  to  be  too  terrible;  nowadays  they  are  composed 
of  an  iron  door,  a  grated  window,  a  camp  bed,  a  flagged  pave- 
ment, four  stone  walls,  and  a  stone  ceiling,  and  are  called 
chambers  of  punishment.  A  little  light  penetrates  towards 
mid-day.  The  inconvenient  point  about  these  chambers  which, 
as  the  reader  sees,  are  not  dungeons,  is  that  they  allow  the  per- 
sons who  should  be  at  work  to  think. 

So  Brujon  meditated,  and  he  emerged  from  the  chamber 
of  punishment  with  a  rope.  As  he  had  the  name  of  being 
very  dangerous  in  the  Charlemagne  courtyard,  he  was  placed 
in  the  New  Building.  The  first  thing  he  found  in  the  New 
Building  was  Guelemer,  the  second  was  a  nail ;  Guelemer,  that 
is  to  say,  crime ;  a  nail,  that  is  to  say,  liberty.  Brujon,  of  whom 
it  is  high  time  that  the  reader  should  have  a  complete  idea, 
was,  with  an  appearance  of  delicate  health  and  a  profoundly 
premeditated  languor,  a  polished,  intelligent  sprig,  and  a 
thief,  who  had  a  caressing  glance,  and  an  atrocious  smile.  His 
glance  resulted  from  his  will,  and  his  smile  from  his  nature. 
His  first  studies  in  his  art  had  been  directed  to  roofs.  He  had 
made  great  progress  in  the  industry  of  the  men  who  tear  oft* 
lead,  who  plunder  the  roofs  and  despoil  the  gutters  by  the 
process  called  double  pickings. 

The  circumstance  which  put  the  finishing  touch  on  the 
moment  peculiarly  favorable  for  an  attempt  at  escape,  was  that 
the  roofers  were  re-laying  and  re-jointing,  at  that  very  mo- 
ment, a  portion  of  the  slates  on  the  prison.  The  Saint-Ber- 
nard courtyard  was  no  longer  absolutely  isolated  from  the 
Charlemagne  and  the  Saint-Louis  courts.  I'p  above  there 
were  scaffoldings  and  ladders;  in  other  words,  bridges  and 
stairs  in  the  direction  of  liberty. 


174  SAIST-DENIS 

The  New  Building,  which  was  the  most  cracked  and  de- 
crepit thing  to  be  seen  anywhere  in  the  world,  was  the  weak 
point  in  the  prison.  The  walls  were  eaten  by  saltpetre  to  such 
an  extent  that  the  authorities  had  been  obliged  to  line  the 
vaults  of  the  dormitories  with  a  sheathing  of  wood,  because 
stones  were  in  the  habit  of  becoming  detached  and  falling  on 
the  prisoners  in  their  beds.  In  spite  of  this  antiquity,  the  au- 
thorities committed  the  error  of  confining  in  the  New  Building 
the  most  troublesome  prisoners,  of  placing  there  "the  hard 
cases,"  as  they  say  in  prison  parlance. 

The  New  Building  contained  four  dormitories,  one  above 
the  other,  and  a  top  story  which  was  called  the  Bel- Air  (Fine- 
Air).  A  large  chimney-flue,  probably  from  some  ancient 
kitchen  of  the  Dukes  de  la  Force,  started  from  the  ground- 
floor,  traversed  all  four  stories,  cut  the  dormitories,  where  it 
figured  as  a  flattened  pillar,  into  two  portions,  and  finally 
pierced  the  roof. 

Guelemer  and  Brujon  were  in  the  same  dormitory.  They 
had  been  placed,  by  way  of  precaution,  on  the  lower  story. 
Chance  ordained  that  the  heads  of  their  beds  should  rest 
against  the  chimney. 

Thenardier  was  directly  over  their  heads  in  the  top  story 
known  as  Fine- Air.  The  pedestrian  who  halts  on  the  Rue  Cul- 
ture-Sainte-Catherine,  after  passing  the  barracks  of  the  fire- 
men, in  front  of  the  prote-cochere  of  the  bathing  establish- 
ment, beholds  a  yard  full  of  flowers  and  shrubs  in  wooden 
boxes,  at  the  extremity  of  which  spreads  out  a  little  white 
rotunda  with  two  wings,  brightened  up  with  green  shutters, 
the  bucolic  dream  of  Jean  Jacques. 

Not  more  than  ten  years  ago,  there  rose  above  that  ro- 
tunda an  enormous  black,  hideous,  bare  wall  by  which  it  was 
backed  up. 

This  was  the  outer  wall  of  La  Force. 

This  wall,  beside  that  rotunda,  was  Milton  viewed  through 
Berquin. 

Lofty  as  it  was,  this  wall  was  overtopped  by  a  still  blacker 
roof,  which  could  be  seen  beyond.  This  was  the  roof  of  the 


LITTLE  QAVROCHE  175 

New  Building.  There  one  could  descry  four  dormer-win- 
dows, guarded  with  bars;  they  were  the  windows  of  the  Fine- 
Air. 

A  chimney  pierced  the  roof;  this  was  the  chimney  which 
traversed  the  dormitories. 

The  Bel-Air,  that  top  story  of  the  New  Building,  was  a 
sort  of  large  hall,  with  a  Mansard  roof,  guarded  with  triple 
gratings  and  double  doors  of  sheet  iron,  which  were  studded 
with  enormous  bolts.  When  one  entered  from  the  north  end, 
one  had  on  one's  left  the  four  dormer-windows,  on  one's  right, 
facing  the  windows,  at  regular  intervals,  four  square,  tolerably 
vast  cages,  separated  by  narrow  passages,  built  of  masonry  to 
about  the  height  of  the  elbow,  and  the  rest,  up  to  the  roof,  of 
iron  bars. 

Thenardier  had  been  in  solitary  confinement  in  one  of  these 
cages  since  the  night  of  the  3d  of  February.  Xo  one  was 
ever  able  to  discover  how,  and  by  what  connivance,  he  suc- 
ceeded in  procuring,  and  secreting  a  bottle  of  wine,  invented, 
so  it  is  said,  by  Desrues,  with  which  a  narcotic  is  mixed,  and 
which  the  band  of  the  Endormeurs,  or  Sleep-compellers,  ren- 
dered famous. 

There  are,  in  many  prisons,  treacherous  employees,  half- 
jailers,  half-thieves,  who  assist  in  escapes,  who  sell  to  the 
police  an  unfaithful  service,  and  who  turn  a  penny  whenever 
they  can. 

On  that  same  night,  then,  when  Little  Gavroche  picked  up 
the  two  lost  children,  Brujon  and  Guelemer,  who  knew  that 
Babet,  who  had  escaped  that  morning,  was  waiting  for  them 
in  the  street  as  well  as  Montparnasse,  rose  softly,  and  with 
the  nail  which  Brujon  had  found,  began  to  pierce  the  chimney 
against  which  their  beds  stood.  The  rubbish  fell  on  Brujon 's 
bed,  so  that  they  were  not  heard.  Showers  mingled  with  thun- 
der shook  the  doors  on  their  hinges,  and  created  in  the  prison 
a  terrible  and  opportune  uproar.  Those  of  the  prisoners  who 
woke,  pretended  to  fall  asleep  again,  and  left  Guelemer  and 
Brujon  to  their  own  devices.  Brujon  was  adroit;  Guelemer 
was  vigorous.  Before  any  sound  had  reached  the  watcher,  who 


176  SAINT-DENIS 

was  sleeping  in  the  grated  cell  which  opened  into  the  dormi- 
tory, the  wall  had  heen  pierced,  the  chimney  scaled,  the  iron 
grating  which  barred  the  upper  orifice  of  the  flue  forced,  and 
the  two  redoubtable  ruffians  were  on  the  roof.  The  wind  and 
rain  redoubled,  the  roof  was  slippery. 

"What  a  good  night  to  leg  it !"  said  Brujon. 

An  abyss  six  feet  broad  and  eighty  feet  deep  separated  them 
from  the  surrounding  wall.  At  the  bottom  of  this  abyss,  they 
could  see  the  musket  of  a  sentinel  gleaming  through  the  gloom. 
They  fastened  one  end  of  the  rope  which  Brujon  had  spun 
in  his  dungeon  to  the  stumps  of  the  iron  bars  which  they  had 
just  wrenched  off,  flung  the  other  over  the  outer  wall,  crossed 
the  abyss  at  one  bound,  clung  to  the  coping  of  the  wall,  got 
astride  of  it,  let  themselves  slip,  one  after  the  other,  along  the 
rope,  upon  a  little  roof  which  touches  the  bath-house,  pulled 
their  rope  after  them,  jumped  down  into  the  courtyard  of  the 
bath-house,  traversed  it,  pushed  open  the  porter's  wicket,  be- 
side which  hung  his  rope,  pulled  this,  opened  the  porte- 
cochere,  and  found  themselves  in  the  street. 

Three-quarters  of  an  hour  had  not  elapsed  since  they  had 
risen  in  bed  in  the  dark,  nail  in  hand,  and  their  project  in 
their  heads. 

A  few  moments  later  they  had  joined  Babet  and  Montpar- 
nasse,  who  were  prowling  about  the  neighborhood. 

They  had  broken  their  rope  in  pulling  it  after  them,  and 
a  bit  of  it  remained  attached  to  the  chimney  on  the  roof. 
They  had  sustained  no  other  damage,  however,  than  that  of 
scratching  nearly  all  the  skin  off  their  hands. 

That  night,  Thenardier  was  warned,  without  any  one  being 
able  to  explain  how,  and  was  not  asleep. 

Towards  one  o'clock  in  the  morning,  the  night  being  very 
dark,  he  saw  two  shadows  pass  along  the  roof,  in  the  rain  and 
squalls,  in  front  of  the  dormer-window  which  was  opposite 
his  cage.  One  halted  at  the  window,  long  enough  to  dart  in  a 
glance.  This  was  Brujon. 

Thenardier  recognized  him,  and  understood.  This  was 
enough. 


LITTLE  GAVROCHE  177 

Thenardier,  rated  as  a  burglar,  and  detained  as  a  measure 
of  precaution  under  the  charge  of  organizing  a  nocturnal  am- 
bush, with  armed  force,  was  kept  in  sight.  The  sentry,  who 
was  relieved  every  two  hours,  marched  up  and  down  in  front 
of  his  cage  with  loaded  musket.  The  Fine-Air  was  lighted  by 
a  skylight.  The  prisoner  had  on  his  feet  fetters  weighing 
fifty  pounds.  Every  day,  at  four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  a 
jailer,  escorted  by  two  dogs, — this  was  still  in  vogue  at  that 
time, — entered  his  cage,  deposited  beside  his  bed  a  loaf  of  black 
bread  weighing  two  pounds,  a  jug  of  water,  a  bowl  filled  with 
rather  thin  bouillon,  in  which  swam  a  few  Mayagan  beans, 
inspected  his  irons  and  tapped  the  bars.  This  man  and  his 
dogs  made  two  visits  during  the  night. 

Thenardier  had  obtained  permission  to  keep  a  sort  of  iron 
bolt  which  he  used  to  spike  his  bread  into  a  crack  in  the  wall, 
"in  order  to  preserve  it  from  the  rats,"  as  he  said.  As  The- 
nardier was  kept  in  sight,  no  objection  had  been  made  to  this 
spike.  Still,  it  was  remembered  afterwards,  that  one  of  the 
jailers  had  said :  "It  would  be  better  to  let  him  have  only  a 
wooden  spike." 

At  two  o'clock  in  the  morning,  the  sentinel,  who  was  an  old 
soldier,  was  relieved,  and  replaced  by  a  conscript.  A  few 
moments  later,  the  man  with  the  dogs  paid  his  visit,  and  went 
off  without  noticing  anything,  except,  possibly,  the  excessive 
youth  and  "the  rustic  air"  of  the  "raw  recruit."  Two  hours 
afterwards,  at  four  o'clock,  when  they  came  to  relieve  the  con- 
script, he  was  found  asleep  on  the  floor,  lying  like  a  log  near 
Thenardier's  cage.  As  for  Thenardier,  he  was  no  longer  there. 
There  was  a  hole  in  the  ceiling  of  his  cage,  and,  above  it,  an- 
other hole  in  the  roof.  One  of  the  planks  of  his  bed  had  been 
wrenched  off,  and  probably  carried  away  with  him,  as  it  was 
not  found.  They  also  seized  in  his  cell  a  half-empty  bottle 
which  contained  the  remains  of  the  stupefying  wine  with 
which  the  soldier  had  been  drugged.  The  soldier's  bayonet 
had  disappeared. 

At  the  moment  when  this  discovery  was  made,  it  was  as- 
sumed that  Thenardier  was  out  of  reach.  The  truth  is,  that 


178  8AI  \T-DENI8 

he  was  no  longer  in  the  New  Building,  but  that  he  was  still  in 
great  danger. 

Thenardier,  on  reaching  the  roof  of  the  New  Building,  had 
found  the  remains  of  Brujon's  rope  hanging  to  the  bars  of  the 
upper  trap  of  the  chimney,  but,  as  this  broken  fragment  was 
much  too  short,  he  had  not  been  able  to  escape  by  the  outer 
wall,  as  Brujon  and  Guelemer  had  done. 

When  one  turns  from  the  Rue  des  Ballets  into  the  Rue  du 
Roi-de-Sicile,  one  almost  immediately  encounters  a  repulsive 
ruin.  There  stood  on  that  spot,  in  the  last  century,  a  house 
of  which  only  the  back  wall  now  remains,  a  regular  wall  of 
masonry,  which  rises  to  the  height  of  the  third  story  between 
the  adjoining  buildings.  This  ruin  can  be  recognized  by  two 
large  square  windows  which  are  still  to  be  seen  there;  the 
middle  one,  that  nearest  the  right  gable,  is  barred  with  a 
worm-eaten  beam  adjusted  like  a  prop.  Through  these  win- 
dows there  was  formerly  visible  a  lofty  and  lugubrious  wall, 
which  was  a  fragment  of  the  outer  wall  of  La  Force. 

The  empty  space  on  the  street  left  by  the  demolished  house 
is  half-filled  by  a  fence  of  rotten  boards,  shored  up  by  five 
stone  posts.  In  this  recess  lies  concealed  a  little  shanty  which 
leans  against  the  portion  of  the  ruin  which  has  remained 
standing.  The  fence  has  a  gate,  which,  a  few  years  ago,  was 
fastened  only  by  a  latch. 

It  was  the  crest  of  this  ruin  that  Thenardier  had  succeeded 
in  reaching,  a  little  after  one  o'clock  in  the  morning. 

How  had  he  got  there  ?  That  is  what  no  one  has  ever  been 
able  to  explain  or  understand.  The  lightning  must,  at  the 
same  time,  have  hindered  and  helped  him.  Had  he  made  use 
of  the  ladders  and  scaffoldings  of  the  slaters  to  get  from  roof 
to  roof,  from  enclosure  to  enclosure,  from  compartment  to 
compartment,  to  the  buildings  of  the  Charlemagne  court,  then 
to  the  buildings  of  the  Saint-Louis  court,  to  the  outer  wall, 
and  thence  to  the  hut  on  the  Rue  du  Roi-de-Sicile?  But  in 
that  itinerary  there  existed  breaks  which  seemed  to  render  it 
an  impossibility.  Had  he  placed  the  plank  from  his  bed  like 
a  bridge  from  the  roof  of  the  Fine-Air  to  the  outer  wall,  and 


LITTLE  GAV ROCHE  179 

crawled  flat  on  his  belly  on  the  coping  of  the  outer  wall  the 
whole  distance  round  the  prison  as  far  as  the  hut?  But  the 
outer  wall  of  La  Force  formed  a  crenellated  and  unequal  line; 
it  mounted  and  descended,  it  dropped  at  the  firemen's  bar- 
racks, it  rose  towards  the  bath-house,  it  was  cut  in  twain  by 
buildings,  it  was  not  even  of  the  same  height  on  the  Hotel 
Larnoignon  as  on  the  Rue  Pavee;  everywhere  occurred  falls 
and  right  angles ;  and  then,  the  sentinels  must  have  espied  the 
dark  form  of  the  fugitive;  hence,  the  route  taken  by  The- 
nardier  still  remains  rather  inexplicable.  In  two  manners, 
flight  was  impossible.  Had  Thenardier,  spurred  on  by  that 
thirst  for  liberty  which  changes  precipices  into  ditches,  iron 
bars  into  wattles  of  osier,  a  legless  man  into  an  athlete,  a 
gouty  man  into  a  bird,  stupidity  into  instinct,  instinct  into 
intelligence,  and  intelligence  into  genius,  had  Thenardier  in- 
vented a  third  mode  ?  No  one  has  ever  found  out. 

The  marvels  of  escape  cannot  always  be  accounted  for.  The 
man  who  makes  his  escape,  we  repeat,  is  inspired;  there  is 
something  of  the  star  and  of  the  lightning  in  the  mysterious 
gleam  of  flight;  the  effort  towards  deliverance  is  no  less 
surprising  than  the  flight  towards  the  sublime,  and  one  says 
of  the  escaped  thief :  "How  did  he  contrive  to  scale  that  wall  ?" 
in  the  same  way  that  one  says  of  Corneille :  "Where  did  he  find 
the  means  of  dying  ?" 

At  all  events,  dripping  with  perspiration,  drenched  with 
rain,  with  his  clothes  hanging  in  ribbons,  his  hands  flayed,  his 
elbows  bleeding,  his  knees  torn,  Thenardier  had  reached  what 
children,  in  their  figurative  language,  call  the  edge  of  the  wall 
of  the  ruin,  there  he  had  stretched  himself  out  at  full  length, 
and  there  his  strength  had  failed  him.  A  steep  escarpment 
three  stories  high  separated  him  from  the  pavement  of  the 
street. 

The  rope  which  he  had  was  too  short. 

There  he  waited,  pale,  exhausted,  desperate  with  all  the  de- 
spair which  he  had  undergone,  still  hidden  by  the  night,  but 
telling  himself  that  the  day  was  on  the  point  of  dawning, 
alarmed  at  the  idea  of  hearing  the  neighboring  clock  of  Saint- 


180  8A1NT-DEXI8 

Paul  strike  four  within  a  few  minutes,  an  hour  when  the  sen- 
tinel was  relieved  and  when  the  latter  would  be  found  asleep 
under  the  pierced  roof,  staring  in  horror  at  a  terrible  depth, 
at  the  light  of  the  street  lanterns,  the  wet,  black  pavement, 
that  pavement  longed  for  yet  frightful,  which  meant  death, 
and  which  meant  liberty. 

He  asked  himself  whether  his  three  accomplices  in  flight 
had  succeeded,  if  they  had  heard  him,  and  if  they  would 
come  to  his  assistance.  He  listened.  With  the  exception  of 
the  patrol,  no  one  had  passed  through  the  street  since  he  had 
been  there.  Nearly  the  whole  of  the  descent  of  the  market- 
gardeners  from  Montreuil,  from  Charonne,  from  Vincennes, 
and  from  Bercy  to  the  markets  was  accomplished  through  the 
Hue  Saint- Antoine. 

Four  o'clock  struck.  Thenardier  shuddered.  A  few  mo- 
ments later,  that  terrified  and  confused  uproar  which  follows 
the  discovery  of  an  escape  broke  forth  in  the  prison.  The 
sound  of  doors  opening  and  shutting,  the  creaking  of  gratings 
on  their  hinges,  a  tumult  in  the  guard-house,  the  hoarse  shouts 
of  the  turnkeys,  the  shock  of  musket-butts  on  the  pavement 
of  the  courts,  reached  his  ears.  Lights  ascended  and  descended 
past  the  grated  windows  of  the  dormitories,  a  torch  ran  along 
the  ridge-pole  of  the  top  story  of  the  New  Building,  the  fire- 
men belonging  in  the  barracks  on  the  right  had  been  sum- 
moned. Their  helmets,  which  the  torch  lighted  up  in  the  rain, 
went  and  came  along  the  roofs.  At  the  same  time,  The- 
nardier perceived  in  the  direction  of  the  Bastille  a  wan  white- 
ness lighting  up  the  edge  of  the  sky  in  doleful  wise. 

He  was  on  top  of  a  wall  ten  inches  wide,  stretched  out 
under  the  heavy  rains,  with  two  gulfs  to  right  and  left,  unable 
to  stir,  subject  to  the  giddiness  of  a  possible  fall,  and  to  the 
horror  of  a  certain  arrest,  and  his  thoughts,  like  the  pendulum 
of  a  clock,  swung  from  one  of  these  ideas  to  the  other :  "Dead 
if  I  fall,  caught  if  I  stay."  In  the  midst  of  this  anguish,  he 
suddenly  saw,  the  street  being  still  dark,  a  man  who  was  glid- 
ing along  the  walls  and  coming  from  the  Rue  Pavee,  halt  in 
the  recess  above  which  Thenardier  was,  as  it  were,  suspended. 


LITTLE  GAV ROCHE 

Here  this  man  was  joined  by  a  second,  who  walked  with  the 
same  caution,  then  by  a  third,  then  by  a  fourth.  When  these 
men  were  re-united,  one  of  them  lifted  the  latch  of  the  gato 
in  the  fence,  and  all  four  entered  the  enclosure  in  which  the 
shanty  stood.  They  halted  directly  under  Thenardier.  These 
men  had  evidently  chosen  this  vacant  space  in  order  that  they 
might  consult  without  being  seen  by  the  passers-by  or  by  the 
sentinel  who  guards  the  wicket  of  La  Force  a  few  paces  dis- 
tant. It  must  be  added,  that  the  rain  kept  this  sentinel  blocked 
in  his  box.  Thenardier,  not  being  able  to  distinguish  their 
visages,  lent  an  car  to  their  words  with  the  desperate  attention 
of  a  wretch  who  feels  himself  lost. 

Thenardier  saw  something  resembling  a  gleam  of  hope  flash 
before  his  eyes, — these  men  conversed  in  slang. 

The  first  said  in  a  low  but  distinct  voice: — 

"Let's  cut.     What  are  we  up  to  here?" 

The  second  replied :  "It's  raining  hard  enough  to  put  out 
the  very  devil's  fire.  And  the  bobbies  will  be  along  instanter. 
There's  a  soldier  on  guard  yonder.  We  shall  get  nabbed  here." 

These  two  words,  id  go  and  icicaille,  both  of  which  mean 
id,  and  which  belong,  the  first  to  the  slang  of  the  barriers,  the 
second  to  the  slang  of  the  Temple,  were  flashes  of  light  for 
Thenardier.  By  the  idgo  he  recognized  Brujon,  who  was  a 
prowler  of  the  barriers,  by  the  icicaille  he  knew  Babet,  who, 
among  his  other  trades,  had  been  an  old-clothes  broker  at  the 
Temple. 

The  antique  slang  of  the  great  century  is  no  longer  spoken 
except  in  the  Temple,  and  Babet  was  really  the  only  person 
who  spoke  it  in  all  its  purity.  Had  it  not  been  for  the 
icicaille,  Thenardier  would  not  have  recognized  him.  for  he 
had  entirely  changed  his  voice. 

In  the  meanwhile,  the  third  man  had  intervened. 

"There's  no  hurry  yet,  let's  wait  a  bit.  How  do  we  know 
that  he  doesn't  stand  in  need  of  us?" 

By  this,  which  was  nothing  but  French,  Thenardier  recog- 
nized Montparnasse,  who  made  it  a  point  in  his  elegapce  to 
understand  all  slangs  and  to  speak  none  of  them. 


182  SAI  XT-DENIS 

As  for  the  fourth,  ho  held  his  peace,  but  his  huge  shoulders 
betrayed  him.  Thenardier  did  not  hesitate.  It  was  Guelemer. 

Brujon  replied  almost  impetuously, but  still  in  a  low  tone: — 

"What  are  you  jabbering  about  ?  The  tavern-keeper  hasn't 
managed  to  cut  his  stick.  He  don't  tumble  to  the  racket, 
that  he  don't !  You  have  to  be  a  pretty  knowing  cove  to  tear 
up  your  shirt,  cut  up  your  sheet  to  make  a  rope,  punch  holes 
in  doors,  get  up  false  papers,  make  false  keys,  file  your 
irons,  hang  out  your  cord,  hide  yourself,  and  disguise  yourself ! 
The  old  fellow  hasn't  managed  to  play  it,  he  doesn't  under- 
stand how  to  work  the  business." 

Babet  added,  still  in  that  classical  slang  which  was  spoken 
by  Poulailler  and  Cartouche,  and  which  is  to  the  bold,  new, 
highly  colored  and  risky  argot  used  by  Brujon  what  the 
language  of  Racine  is  to  the  language  of  Andre  Chenier : — 

"Your  tavern-keeper  must  have  been  nabbed  in  the  act. 
You  have  to  be  knowing.  He's  only  a  greenhorn.  He  must 
have  let  himself  be  taken  in  by  a  bobby,  perhaps  even  by  a 
sheep  who  played  it  on  him  as  his  pal.  Listen,  Montparnasse, 
do  you  hear  those  shouts  in  the  prison?  You  have  seen  all 
those  lights.  He's  recaptured,  there !  He'll  get  off  with 
twenty  years.  I  ain't  afraid,  I  ain't  a  coward,  but  there  ain't 
anything  more  to  do,  or  otherwise  they'd  lead  us  a  dance. 
Don't  get  mad,  come  with  us,  let's  go  drink  a  bottle  of  old 
wine  together." 

"One  doesn't  desert  one's  friends  in  a  scrape,"  grumbled 
Montparnasse. 

"I  tell  you  he's  nabbed !"  retorted  Brujon.  "At  the  present 
moment,  the  inn-keeper  ain't  worth  a  ha'penny.  We  can't 
do  nothing  for  him.  Let's  be  off.  Every  minute  I  think  a 
bobby  has  got  me  in  his  fist." 

Montparnasse  no  longer  offered  more  than  a  feeble  resist- 
ance; the  fact  is,  that  these  four  men,  with  the  fidelity  of 
ruffians  who  never  abandon  each  other,  had  prowled  all  night 
long  about  La  Force,  great  as  was  their  peril,  in  the  hope  of 
seeing  Thenardier  make  his  appearance  on  the  top  of  some 
wall.  But  the  night,  which  was  really  growing  too  fine, — for 


LITTLE  GAV ROCHE 

the  downpour  was  such  as  to  render  all  the  streets  deserted, — 
the  cold  which  was  overpowering  them,  their  soaked  garments, 
their  hole-ridden  shoes,  the  alarming  noise  which  had  just 
burst  forth  in  the  prison,  the  hours  which  had  elapsed,  the 
patrol  which  they  had  encountered,  the  hope  which  was  vanish- 
ing, all  urged  them  to  heat  a  retreat.  Montparnasse  himself, 
who  was,  perhaps,  almost  Thenardier's  son-in-law,  yielded. 
A  moment  more,  and  they  would  be  gone.  Thenardier  was 
panting  on  his  wall  like  the  shipwrecked  sufferers  of  the 
Meduse  on  their  raft  when  they  beheld  the  vessel  which  had 
appeared  in  sight  vanish  on  the  horizon. 

He  dared  not  call  to  them;  a  cry  might  be  heard  and  ruin 
everything.  An  idea  occurred  to  him,  a  last  idea,  a  flash  of 
inspiration  ;  he  drew  from  his  pocket  the  end  of  Brujon's  rope, 
which  he  had  detached  from  the  chimney  of  the  N"cw  Building, 
and  flung  it  into  the  space  enclosed  by  the  fence. 

This  rope  fell  at  their  feet. 

"A  widow,"1  said  Babet. 

"My  tortouse  !"2  said  Brujon. 

"The  tavern-keeper  is  there,"  said  Montparnasse. 

They  raised  their  eyes.  Thenardier  thrust  out  his  head  a 
very  little. 

"Quick !"  said  Montparnasse,  "have  you  the  other  end  of 
the  rope,  Brujon?" 

"Yes." 

"Knot  the  two  pieces  together,  we'll  fling  him  the  rope,  he 
can  fasten  it  to  the  wall,  and  he'll  have  enough  of  it  to  get 
down  with." 

Thenardier  ran  the  risk,  and  spoke: — 

*'I  am  paralyzed  with  cold." 

"We'll  warm  you  up." 

"I  can't  budge." 

"Let  yourself  slide,  we'll  catch  you." 

"My  hands  arc  benumbed." 

"Only  fasten  the  rope  to  the  wall." 

"T  can't." 
*Argot  of  the  Temple.  'Argot  of  the  barriers. 


184  8AIXT-DEX18 

"Then  one  of  us  must  climb  up."  said  Montparnasse. 

"Three  stories !"  ejaculated  Brujon. 

An  ancient  plaster  flue,  which  had  served  for  a  stove  that 
had  been  used  in  the  shanty  in  former  times,  ran  along  the 
wall  and  mounted  almost  to  the  very  spot  where  they  could 
see  Thenardier.  This  flue,  then  much  damaged  and  full  of 
cracks,  has  since  fallen,  but  the  marks  of  it  are  still  visible. 

It  was  very  narrow. 

"One  might  get  up  by  the  help  of  that,"  said  Montparnasse. 

"By  that  flue  ?"  exclaimed  Babet,  "a  grown-up  cove,  never ! 
it  would  take  a  brat." 

"A  brat  must  be  got,"  resumed  Brujon. 

"Where  are  we  to  find  a  young  'un?"  said  Guelemer. 

"Wait,"  said  Montparnasse.    "I've  got  the  very  article." 

He  opened  the  gate  of  the  fence  very  softly,  made  sure  that 
no  one  was  passing  along  the  street,  stepped  out  cautiously, 
shut  the  gate  behind  him.  and  set  off  at  a  run  in  the  direction 
of  the  Bastille. 

Seven  or  eight  minutes  elapsed,  eight  thousand  centuries  to 
Thenardier;  Babet,  Brujon,  and  Guelemer  did  not  open  their 
lips;  at  last  the  gate  opened  once  more,  and  Montparnasse 
appeared,  breathless,  and  followed  by  Gavroche.  The  rain 
still  rendered  the  street  completely  deserted. 

Little  Gavroche  entered  the  enclosure  and  gazed  at  the 
forms  of  these  ruffians  with  a  tranquil  air.  The  water  was 
dripping  from  his  hair.  Guelemer  addressed  him : — 

"Are  you  a  man,  young  'un?" 

Gavroche  shrugged  his  shoulders,  and  replied: — 

"A  young  'un  like  me's  a  man,  and  men  like  you  are  babes.'* 

"The  brat's  tongue's  well  hung  !"  exclaimed  Babet. 

"The  Paris  brat  ain't  made  of  straw,"  added  Brujon. 

"What  do  you  want  ?"  asked  Gavroche. 

Montparnasse  answered : — 

"Climb  up  that  flue/' 

"With  this  rope,"  said  Babet. 

"And  fasten  it,"  continued  Brujon. 

"To  the  top  of  the  wall,"  went  on  Babet. 


LITTLE  GAVROCHE  185 

"To  the  cross-bar  of  the  window,"  added  Brujon. 

"And  then?"  said  Gavroche. 

"There!"  said  Cuelemer. 

The  gamin  examined  the  rope,  the  flue,  the  wall,  the 
windows,  and  made  that  indescribable  and  disdainful  noise 
with  his  lips  which  signifies: — 

"Is  that  all!" 

"There's  a  man  up  there  whom  you  are  to  save,"  resumed 
Montparnasse. 

"Will  you  ?"  began  Brujon  again. 

"Greenhorn !"  replied  the  lad,  as  though  the  question  ap- 
peared a  most  unprecedented  one  to  him. 

And  he  took  off  his  shoes. 

Guelemer  seized  Gavroche  by  one  arm,  set  him  on  the  roof  of 
the  shanty,  whose  worm-eaten  planks  bent  beneath  the  urchin's 
weight,  and  handed  him  the  rope  which  Brujon  had  knotted 
together  during  Montparnasso's  absence.  The  gamin  directed 
his  steps  towards  the  flue,  which  it  was  easy  to  enter,  thanks  to 
a  large  crack  which  touched  the  roof.  At  the  moment  when 
he  was  on  the  point  of  ascending,  Thenardier,  who  saw  life 
and  safety  approaching,  bent  over  the  edge  of  the  wall;  the 
first  light  of  dawn  struck  white  upon  his  brow  dripping  with 
sweat,  upon  his  livid  cheek-bones,  his  sharp  and  savage  nose, 
his  bristling  gray  beard,  and  Gavroche  recognized  him. 

"Hullo !  it's  my  father !    Oh,  that  won't  hinder." 

And  taking  the  rope  in  his  teeth,  he  resolutely  began  the 
ascent. 

He  reached  the  summit  of  the  hut,  bestrode  the  old  wall  as 
though  it  had  been  a  horse,  and  knotted  the  rope  firmly  to  the 
upper  cross-bar  of  the  window. 

A  moment  later,  Thenardier  was  in  the  street. 

As  soon  as  he  touched  the  pavement,  as  soon  as  he  found 
himself  out  of  danger,  he  was  no  longer  either  weary,  or 
chilled  or  trembling:  the  terrible  things  from  which  he  had 
escaped  vanished  like  smoke,  all  that  strange  and  ferocious 
mind  awoke  once  more,  and  stood  erect  and  free,  ready  to 
march  onward. 


186  BAl  \T-DKX  IB 

These  were  this  man's  first  words: — 

"Now,  whom  are  we  to  eat?" 

It  is  useless  to  explain  the  sense  of  this  frightfully  trans- 
parent remark,  which  signifies  both  to  kill,  to  assassinate,  and 
to  plunder.  To  eat,  true  sense:  to  devour. 

''Let's  get  well  into  a  corner."  said  Brujon.  "Let's  settle 
it  in  three  words,  and  part  at  once.  There  was  an  affair  that 
promised  well  in  the  Rue  Plumet,  a  deserted  street,  an  isolated 
house,  an  old  rotten  gate  on  a  garden,  and  lone  women." 

"Well !  why  not  ?"  demanded  Thenardier. 

"Your  girl,  fiponine,  went  to  see  about  the  matter,"  replied 
Babet. 

"And  she  brought  a  biscuit  to  Magnon,"  added  Guelemer. 
"Nothing  to  be  made  there." 

"The  girl's  no  fool,"  said  Thenardier.  "Still,  it  must  be 
seen  to." 

"Yes.  yes,"  said  Brujon,  "it  must  be  looked  up." 

In  the  meanwhile,  none  of  the  men  seemed  to  see  Gavroche, 
who,  during  this  colloquy,  had  seated  himself  on  one  of  the 
fence-posts ;  he  waited  a  few  moments,  thinking  that  perhaps 
his  father  would  turn  towards  him,  then  he  put  on  his  shoes 
again,  and  said: — 

"Is  that  all  ?  You  don't  want  any  more,  my  men  ?  Now 
you're  out  of  your  scrape.  I'm  off.  I  must  go  and  get  my 
brats  out  of  bed." 

And  off  he  went. 

The  five  men  emerged,  one  after  another,  from  the 
enclosure. 

When  Gavroche  had  disappeared  at  the  corner  of  the  Rue 
des  Ballets,  Babet  took  Thenardier  aside. 

"Did  you  take  a  good  look  at  that  young  'un  ?"  he  asked. 

"What  young  'un?" 

"The  one  who  climbed  the  wall  and  carried  you  the  rope." 

"Not  particularly." 

"Well,  I  don't  know,  but  it  strikes  me  that  it  was  your  son." 

"Bah !"  said  Thenardier,  "do  you  think  so  ?" 


BOOK   SEVENTH.— SLANG 
CHAPTER   I 

ORIGIN 

Pigritia  is  a  terrible  word. 

It  engenders  a  whole  world,  la  pegre,  for  which  read 
theft,  and  a  hell,  la  pegrenne,  for  which  read  hunger. 

Thus,  idleness  is  the  mother. 

She  has  a  son.  theft,  and  a  daughter,  hunger. 

Where  are  we  at  this  moment  ?    In  the  land  of  slang. 

What  is  slang?  It  is  at  one  and  the  same  time,  a  nation 
and  a  dialect ;  it  is  theft  in  its  two  kinds ;  people  and 
language. 

When,  four  and  thirty  years  ago,  the  narrator  of  this  grave 
and  sombre  history  introduced  into  a  work  written  with  the 
same  aim  as  this1  a  thief  who  talked  argot,  there  arose 
amazement  and  clamor. — "What !  How  !  Argot !  Why,  argot 
is  horrible !  It  is  the  language  of  prisons,  galleys,  convicts, 
of  everything  that  is  most  abominable  in  society !"  etc.,  etc. 

We  have  never  understood  this  sort  of  objections. 

Since  that  time,  two  powerful  romancers,  one  of  whom  is  a 
profound  observer  of  the  human  heart,  the  other  an  intrepid 
friend  of  the  people,  Balzac  and  Eugene  Sue,  having  repre- 
sented their  ruth'ans  as  talking  their  natural  language,  as  the 
author  of  The  Last  Day  of  a  Condemned  Man  did  in  1828. 
the  same  objections  have  been  raised.  People  repeated  :  "What 
do  authors  mean  by  that  revolting  dialect  ?  Slang  is  odious  ! 
Slang  makes  one  shudder !" 

Who  denies  that  ?     Of  course  it  does. 

'The  Last  Day  of  a  Condemned  Man. 


188  8AIXT-DEXI8 

When  it  is  a  question  of  probing  a  wound,  a  gulf,  a  society, 
since  when  has  it  been  considered  wrong  to  go  too  far  ?  to  go  to 
the  bottom  ?  We  have  always  thought  that  it  was  sometimes  a 
courageous  act,  and,  at  least,  a  simple  and  useful  deed,  worthy 
of  the  sympathetic  attention  which  duty  accepted  and  fulfilled 
merits.  Why  should  one  not  explore  everything,  and  study 
everything?  Why  should  one  halt  on  the  way?  The  halt  is  a 
matter  depending  on  the  sounding-line,  and  not  on  the  leads- 
man. 

Certainly,  too,  it  is  neither  an  attractive  nor  an  easy  task  to 
undertake  an  investigation  into  the  lowest  depths  of  the  social 
order,  where  terra  firma  comes  to  an  end  and  where  mud 
begins,  to  rummage  in  those  vague,  murky  waves,  to  follow 
up,  to  seize  and  to  fling,  still  quivering,  upon  the  pavement 
that  abject  dialect  which  is  dripping  with  filth  when  thus 
brought  to  the  light,  that  pustulous  vocabulary  each  word  of 
which  seems  an  unclean  ring  from  a  monster  of  the  mire  and 
the  shadows.  Nothing  is  more  lugubrious  than  the  contem- 
plation thus  in  its  nudity,  in  the  broad  light  of  thought,  of 
the  horrible  swarming  of  slang.  It  seems,  in  fact,  to  be  a  sort 
of  horrible  beast  made  for  the  night  which  has  just  been  torn 
from  its  cesspool.  One  thinks  one  beholds  u  frightful,  living, 
and  bristling  thicket  which  quivers,  rustles,  wavers,  returns 
to  shadow,  threatens  and  glares.  One  word  resembles  a  claw, 
another  an  extinguished  and  bleeding  eye,  such  and  such  a 
phrase  seems  to  move  like  the  claw  of  a  crab.  All  this  is  alive 
with  the  hideous  vitality  of  things  which  have  been  organized 
out  of  disorganization. 

Now,  when  has  horror  ever  excluded  study?  Since  when 
has  malady  banished  medicine?  Can  one  imagine  a  naturalist 
refusing  to  study  the  viper,  the  bat,  the  scorpion,  the  centi- 
pede, the  tarantula,  and  one  who  would  cast  them  back  into 
their  darkness,  saying :  "Oh  !  how  ugly  that  is  !"  The  thinker 
who  should  turn  aside  from  slang  would  resemble  a  surgeon 
who  should  avert  his  face  from  an  ulcer  or  a  wart.  He  would 
be  like  a  philologist  refusing  to  examine  a  fact  in  language,  a 
philosopher  hesitating  to  scrutinize  a  fact  in  humanity.  For, 


SLANG  189 

it  must  be  stated  to  those  who  are  ignorant  of  the  case,  that 
argot  is  both  a  literary  phenomenon  and  a  social  result.  What 
is  slang,  properly  speaking?  It  is  the  language  of  wretch- 
edness. 

We  may  be  stopped ;  the  fact  may  be  put  to  us  in  general 
terms,  which  is  one  way  of  attenuating  it ;  we  may  bo  told,  that 
all  trades,  professions,  it  may  be  added,  all  the  accidents  of 
the  social  hierarchy  and  all  forms  of  intelligence,  have  their 
own  slang.  The  merchant  who  says :  "Montpellier  not  active, 
Marseilles  fine  quality,"  the  broker  on  'change  who  says: 
"Assets  at  end  of  current  month,"  the  gambler  who  says: 
"Tiers  et  tout,  refait  de  pique,"  the  sheriff  of  the  Norman  Isles 
who  says :  The  holder  in  fee  reverting  to  his  landed  estate 
cannot  claim  the  fruits  of  that  estate  during  the  hereditary 
seizure  of  the  real  estate  by  the  mortgagor,"  the  playwright 
who  says:  "The  piece  was  hissed,"  the  comedian  who  says: 
"I've  made  a  hit,"  the  philosopher  who  says:  "Phenomenal 
triplicity,"  the  huntsman  who  says:  "Voileci  allais,  Voileci 
-fuyant,"  the  phrenologist  who  says :  "Amativeness,  combative- 
ness,  secretiveness,"  the  infantry  soldier  who  says :  "My  shoot- 
ing-iron," the  cavalry-man  who  says :  "My  turkey-cock,"  the 
fencing-master  who  says :  "Tierce,  quarte,  break,"  the  printer 
who  says :  "My  shooting-stick  and  galley,'' — all,  printer,  fenc- 
ing-master, cavalry  dragoon,  infantry-man,  phrenologist, 
huntsman,  philosopher,  comedian,  playwright,  sheriff,  gam- 
bler, stock-broker,  and  merchant,  speak  slang.  The  painter 
who  says :  "My  grinder,"  the  notary  who  says :  "My  Skip-the- 
Gutter,"  the  hairdresser  who  says :  "My  mealyback,"  the 
cobbler  who  says :  "My  cub,"  talks  slang.  Strictly  speaking,  if 
one  absolutely  insists  on  the  point,  all  the  different  fashions 
of  saying  the  right  and  the  left,  the  sailor's  port  and  star- 
loard,  the  scene-shifters  court-side,  and  garden-side,  the 
beadle's  Gospel-side  and  Epistle-side,  are  slang.  There  is  the 
slang  of  the  affected  lady  as  well  as  of  the  precieu-ses.  The 
Hotel  Rambouillet  nearly  adjoins  the  Cour  des  Miracles. 
There  is  a  slang  of  duchesses,  witness  this  phrase  contained  in 
a  love-letter  from  a  very  great  lady  and  a  very  pretty  woman 


190  SAINT-DENIS 

of  the  Restoration :  "You  will  find  in  this  gossip  a  f ultitude  of 
reasons  why  I  should  libertize."1  Diplomatic  ciphers  are 
slang;  the  pontifical  chancellery  by  using  26  for  Rome, 
grkztntgzyal  for  despatch,  and  abfxustgrnugrkzu  tu  XL  for 
the  Due  de  Modena,  speaks  slang.  The  physicians  of  the 
Middle  Ages  who,  for  carrot,  radish,  and  turnip,  said  Opopo- 
nach,  perfroschinum,  reptitalmus,  dracatholicum,  angdorum, 
postmegorum,  talked  slang.  The  sugar-manufacturer  who 
says:  "Loaf,  clarified,  lumps,  bastard,  common,  burnt," — this 
honest  manufacturer  talks  slang.  A  certain  school  of  criti- 
cism twenty  years  ago,  which  used  to  say:  "Half  of  the  works 
of  Shakespeare  consists  of  plays  upon  words  and  puns,"- 
talked  slang.  The  poet,  and  the  artist  who,  with  profound 
understanding,  would  designate  M.  de  Montmorency  as  "a 
bourgeois,"  if  he  were  not  a  judge  of  verses  and  statues,  speak 
slang.  The  classic  Academician  who  calls  flowers  "Flora," 
fruits,  "Pomona,"  the  sea,  "Neptune,"  love,  "fires,"  beauty, 
"charms,"  a  horse,  "a  courser/'  the  white  or  tri-colored  cock- 
ade, "the  rose  of  Bellona,"  the  three-cornered  hat,  "Mars' 
triangle," — that  classical  Academician  talks  slang.  Algebra, 
medicine,  botany,  have  each  their  slang.  The  tongue  which 
is  employed  on  board  ship,  that  wonderful  language  of  the 
sea,  which  is  so  complete  and  so  picturesque,  which  was  spoken 
by  Jean  Bart,  Duquesne,  Suffren,  and  Duperre,  which  mingles 
with  the  whistling  of  the  rigging,  the  sound  of  the  speaking- 
trumpets,  the  shock  of  the  boarding-irons,  the  roll  of  the  sea, 
the  wind,  the  gale,  the  cannon,  is  wholly  a  heroic  and  dazzling 
slang,  which  is  to  the  fierce  slang  of  the  thieves  what  the  lion 
is  to  the  jackal. 

No  doubt.  But  say  what  we  will,  this  manner  of  under- 
standing the  word  slang  is  an  extension  which  every  one  will 
not  admit.  For  our  part,  we  reserve  to  the  word  its  ancient 
and  precise,  circumscribed  and  determined  significance,  and 
we  restrict  slang  to  slang.  The  veritable  slang  and  the  slang 
that  is  pre-eminently  slang,  if  the  two  words  can  be  coupled 

l"Vous  trouverez  dans  ces  potains-lft,  une  foultitude  de  raisons  pour 
que  je  me  libertise." 


SLANG  191 

thus,  the  slang  immemorial  which  was  a  kingdom,  is  nothing 
else,  wo  repeat,  than  the  homely,  uneasy,  crafty,  treacherous, 
venomous,  cruel,  equivocal,  vile,  profound,  fatal  tongue  of 
wretchedness.  There  exists,  at  the  extremity  of  all  abase- 
ment  and  all  misfortunes,  a  last  misery  which  revolts  and 
makes  up  its  mind  to  enter  into  conflict  with  the  whole  mass 
of  fortunate  facts  and  reigning  rights ;  a  fearful  conflict, 
where,  now  cunning,  now  violent,  unhealthy  and  ferocious  at 
one  and  the  same  time,  it  attacks  the  social  order  with  pin- 
pricks through  vice,  and  with  cluh-blows  through  crime.  To 
meet  the  needs  of  this  conflict,  wretchedness  has  invented  a 
language  of  combat,  which  is  slang. 

To  keep  afloat  and  to  rescue  from  oblivion,  to  hold  above  the 
gulf,  were  it  but  a  fragment  of  some  language  which  man  has 
spoken  and  which  would,  otherwise,  be  lost,  that  is  to  say,  one 
of  the  elements,  good  or  bad,  of  which  civilization  is  composed, 
or  by  which  it  is  complicated,  to  extend  the  records  of  social 
observation;  is  to  serve  civilization  itself.  This  service  Plautus 
rendered,  consciously  or  unconsciously,  by  making  two  Cartha- 
ginian soldiers  talk  Phoenician;  that  service  Moliere  rendered, 
by  making  so  many  of  his  characters  talk  Levantine  and  all 
sorts  of  dialects.  Here  objections  spring  up  afresh.  Phoeni- 
cian, very  good !  Levantine,  quite  right !  Even  dialect,  let 
that  pass !  They  are  tongues  which  have  belonged  to  nations 
or  provinces;  but  slang !  What  is  the  use  of  preserving  slang? 
What  is  the  good  of  assisting  slang  "to  survive"? 

To  this  we  reply  in  one  word,  only.  Assuredly,  if  the  tongue 
which  a  nation  or  a  province  has  spoken  is  worthy  of  interest, 
the  language  which  has  been  spoken  by  a  misery  is  still  more 
worthy  of  attention  and  study. 

It  is  the  language  which  has  been  spoken,  in  France,  for  ex- 
ample, for  more  than  four  centuries,  not  only  by  a  misery,  but 
by  every  possible  human  misery. 

And  then,  we  insist  upon  it,  the  study  of  social  deformities 
and  infirmities,  and  the  task  of  pointing  them  out  with  a  view 
to  remedy,  is  not  a  business  in  which  choice  is  permitted.  The 
historian  of  manners  and  ideas  has  no  less  austere  a  mission 


192 

than  the  historian  of  events.  The  latter  has  the  surface  of 
civilization,  the  conflicts  of  crowns,  the  hirths  of  princes,  the 
marriages  of  kings,  battles,  assemblages,  great  public  men, 
revolutions  in  the  daylight,  everything  on  the  exterior;  the 
other  historian  has  the  interior,  the  depths,  the  people  who  toil, 
suffer,  wait,  the  oppressed  woman,  the  agonizing  child,  the 
secret  war  between  man  and  man,  obscure  ferocities,  preju- 
dices, plotted  iniquities,  the  subterranean,  the  indistinct 
tremors  of  multitudes,  the  die-of-hunger,  the  counter-blows  of 
the  law,  the  secret  evolution  of  souls,  the  go-bare-foot,  the 
bare-armed,  the  disinherited,  the  orphans,  the  unhappy,  and 
the  infamous,  all  the  forms  which  roam  through  the  darkness. 
He  must  descend  with  his  heart  full  of  charity,  and  severity 
at  the  same  time,  as  a  brother  and  as  a  judge,  to  those  im- 
penetrable casemates  where  crawl,  pell-mell,  those  who  bleed 
and  those  who  deal  the  blow,  those  who  weep  and  those  who 
curse,  those  who  fast  and  those  who  devour,  those  who  endure 
evil  and  those  who  inflict  it.  Have  these  historians  of  hearts 
and  souls  duties  at  all  inferior  to  the  historians  of  external 
facts  ?  Does  any  one  think  that  Alighieri  has  any  fewer  things 
to  say  than  Machiavelli  ?  Is  the  under  side  of  civilization  any 
less  important  than  the  upper  side  merely  because  it  is  deeper 
and  more  sombre  ?  Do  we  really  know  the  mountain  well  when 
we  are  not  acquainted  with  the  cavern  ? 

Let  us  say,  moreover,  parenthetically,  that  from  a  few  words 
of  what  precedes  a  marked  separation  might  be  inferred  be- 
tween the  two  classes  of  historians  which  does  not  exist  in  our 
mind.  No  one  is  a  good  historian  of  the  patent,  visible,  strik- 
ing, and  public  life  of  peoples,  if  he  is  not,  at  the  same  time, 
in  a  certain  measure,  the  historian  of  their  deep  and  hidden 
life;  and  no  one  is  a  good  historian  of  the  interior  unless  he 
understands  how,  at  need,  to  be  the  historian  of  the  exterior 
also.  The  history  of  manners  and  ideas  permeates  the  history 
of  events,  and  this  is  true  reciprocally.  They  constitute  two 
different  orders  of  facts  which  correspond  to  each  other,  which 
are  always  interlaced,  and  which  often  bring  forth  results. 
All  the  lineaments  which  Providence  traces  on  the  surface 


SLANG  193 

of  a  nation  have  their  parallels,  somhre  but  distinct,  in  their 
depths,  and  all  convulsions  of  the  depths  produce  ebullitions 
on  the  surface.  True  history  being  a  mixture  of  all  things,  the 
true  historian  mingles  in  everything. 

Man  is  not  a  circle  with  a  single  centre;  he  is  an  ellipse 
with  a  double  focus.  Facts  form  one  of  these,  and  ideas  the 
other. 

Slang  is  nothing  but  a  dressing-room  where  the  tongue 
having  some  bad  action  to  perform,  disguises  itself.  There  it 
clothes  itself  in  word-masks,  in  metaphor-rags.  In  this  guise 
it  becomes  horrible. 

One  finds  it  difficult  to  recognize.  Is  it  really  the  French 
tongue,  the  great  human  tongue?  Behold  it  ready  to  step 
upon  the  stage  and  to  retort  upon  crime,  and  prepared  for  all 
the  employments  of  the  repertory  of  evil.  It  no  longer  walks, 
it  hobbles;  it  limps  on  the  crutch  of  the  Court  of  Miracles,  a 
crutch  mctamorphosable  into  a  club;  it  is  called  vagrancy; 
every  sort  of  spectre,  its  dressers,  have  painted  its  face,  it 
crawls  and  rears,  the  double  gait  of  the  reptile.  Henceforth, 
it  is  apt  at  all  roles,  it  is  made  suspicious  by  the  counterfeiter, 
covered  with  verdigris  by  the  forger,  blacked  by  the  soot  of 
the  incendiary;  and  the  murderer  applies  its  rouge. 

When  one  listens,  by  the  side  of  honest  men,  at  the  portals 
of  society,  one  overhears  the  dialogues  of  those  who  are  on 
the  outside.  One  distinguishes  questions  and  replies.  One 
perceives,  without  understanding  it,  a  hideous  murmur,  sound- 
ing almost  like  human  accents,  but  more  nearly  resembling  a 
howl  than  an  articulate  word.  It  is  slang.  The  words  are 
misshapen  and  stamped  with  an  indescribable  and  fantastic 
bestiality.  One  thinks  one  hears  hydras  talking. 

It  is  unintelligible  in  the  dark.  It  gnashes  and  whispers, 
completing  the  gloom  with  mystery.  It  is  black  in  misfortune, 
it  is  blacker  still  in  crime;  these  two  blacknesses  amalgamated, 
compose  slang.  Obscurity  in  the  atmosphere,  obscurity  in  acts, 
obscurity  in  voices.  Terrible,  toad-like  tongue  which  goes  and 
comes,  leaps,  crawls,  slobbers,  and  stirs  about  in  monstrous 
wise  in  thai  immense  gray  fog  composed  of  rain  and  night,  of 


194  SAINT-DENIS 

hunger,  of  vice,  of  falsehood,  of  injustice,  of  nudity,  of  suf- 
focation, and  of  winter,  the  high  noonday  of  the  miser- 
able. 

Let  us  have  compassion  on  the  chastised.  Alas !  Who  are 
we  ourselves  ?  Who  am  I  who  now  address  you  ?  Who  are  you 
who  are  listening  to  me?  And  are  you  very  sure  that  we 
have  done  nothing  before  we  were  born?  The  earth  is  not 
devoid  of  resemblance  to  a  jail.  Who  knows  whether  man  is 
not  a  recaptured  offender  against  divine  justice?  Look  closely 
at  life.  It  is  so  made,  that  everywhere  we  feel  the  sense  of 
punishment. 

Are  you  what  is  called  a  happy  man  ?  Well !  you  are  sad 
every  day.  Each  day  has  its  own  great  grief  or  its  little  care. 
Yesterday  you  were  trembling  for  i.  health  that  is  dear  to  you, 
to-day  you  fear  for  your  own ;  to-morrow  it  will  be  anxiety 
about  money,  the  day  after  to-morrow  the  diatribe  of  a  slan- 
derer, the  day  after  that,  the  misfortune  of  some  friend ;  then 
the  prevailing  weather,  then  something  that  has  been  broken 
or  lost,  then  a  pleasure  with  which  your  conscience  and  your 
vertebral  column  reproach  you ;  again,  the  course  of  public 
affairs.  This  without  reckoning  in  the  pains  of  the  heart.  And 
so  it  goes  on.  One  cloud  is  dispelled,  another  forms.  There  is 
hardly  one  day  out  of  a  hundred  which  is  wholly  joyous  and 
sunny.  And  you  belong  to  that  small  class  who  are  happy ! 
As  for  the  rest  of  mankind,  stagnating  night  rests  upon  them. 

Thoughtful  minds  make  but  little  use  of  the  phrase:  the 
fortunate  and  the  unfortunate.  In  this  world,  evidently  the 
vestibule  of  another,  there  are  no  fortunate. 

The  real  human  division  is  this:  the  luminous  and  the 
shady.  To  diminish  the  number  of  the  shady,  to  augment 
the  number  of  the  luminous, — that  is  the  object.  That  is 
why  we  cry:  Education!  science!  To  teacli  reading,  means 
to  light  the  fire;  every  syllable  spelled  out  sparkles. 

However,  he  who  says  light  does  not,  necessarily,  say  joy. 
People  suffer  in  the  light;  excess  burns.  The  flame  is  the 
enemy  of  the  wing.  To  burn  without  ceasing  to  fly, — therein 
lies  the  marvel  of  genius. 


8LANO  195 

When  you  shall  have  learned  to  know,  and  to  love,  you  will 
still  suffer.  The  day  is  born  in  tears.  The  luminous  weep, 
if  only  over  those  in  darkness. 


CHAPTER  II 

ROOTS 

SLANG  is  the  tongue  of  those  who  sit  in  darkness. 

Thought  is  moved  in  its  most  sombre  depths,  social  philoso- 
phy is  bidden  to  its  most  poignant  meditations,  in  the  presence 
of  that  enigmatic  dialect  at  once  so  blighted  and  rebellious. 
Therein  lies  chastisement  made  visible.  Every  syllable  has 
an  air  of  being  marked.  The  words  of  the  vulgar  tongue  ap- 
pear therein  wrinkled  and  shrivelled,  as  it  were,  beneath  the 
hot  iron  of  the  executioner.  Some  seem  to  be  still  smoking. 
Such  and  such  a  phrase  produces  upon  you  the  effect  of  the 
shoulder  of  a  thief  branded  with  the  fleur-de-lys,  which  has 
suddenly  been  laid  bare.  Ideas  almost  refuse  to  be  expressed 
in  these  substantives  which  are  fugitives  from  justice.  Meta- 
phor is  sometimes  so  shamele^,  that  one  feels  that  it  has  worn 
the  iron  neck-fetter. 

Moreover,  in  spite  of  all  this,  and  because  of  all  this,  this 
strange  dialect  has  by  rights,  its  own  compartment  in  that 
great  impartial  case  of  pigeon-holes  where  there  is  room  for 
the  rusty  farthing  as  well  as  for  the  gold  medal,  and  which 
is  called  literature.  Slang,  whether  the  public  admit  the  fact 
or  not,  has  its  syntax  and  its  poetry.  It  is  a  language.  Yes, 
by  the  deformity  of  certain  terms,  we  recognize  the  fact  that  it 
was  c.-hewed  by  Mandrin,  and  by  the  splendor  of  certain 
metonymies,  we  feel  that  Villon  spoke  it. 

That  exquisite  and  celebrated  verse — 

Mais  oil  sont  IPS  neiges  d'antan? 

But  where  are  the  snows  of  years  gone  by? 

is  a  verse  of  slang.     Antarn — ante  annum — as  a   word  of 


196  SAIXT-DEItlB 

Thunes  slang,  which  signified  the  past  year,  and  by  extension, 
formerly.  Thirty-five  years  ago,  at  the  epoch  of  the  departure 
of  the  great  chain-gang,  there  could  be  read  in  one  of  the  cells 
at  Bicetre,  this  maxim  engraved  with  a  nail  on  the  wall  by 
a  king  of  Thunes  condemned  to  the  galleys:  Les  dabs  d'antan 
irimaient  siempre  pour  la  pierre  du  Coesre.  This  means 
Kings  in  days  gone  by  always  went  and  had  themselves 
anointed.  In  the  opinion  of  that  king,  anointment  meant  the 
galleys. 

The  word  decarade,  which  expresses  the  departure  of  heavy 
vehicles  at  a  gallop,  is  attributed  to  Villon,  and  it  is  worthy 
of  him.  This  word,  which  strikes  fire  with  all  four  of  its  feet, 
sums  up  in  a  masterly  onomatopoeia  the  whole  of  La  Fontaine's 
admirable  verse : — 

Six  forts  chevaux   tiraient  un  coche. 
Six  stout  horses  drew  a  coach. 

From  a  purely  literary  point  of  view,  few  studies  would 
prove  more  curious  and  fruitful  than  the  study  of  slang.  It  is 
a  whole  language  within  a  language,  a  sort  of  sickly  excres- 
cence, an  unhealthy  graft  which  has  produced  a  vegetation,  a 
parasite  which  has  its  roots  in  the  old  Gallic  trunk,  and  whose 
sinister  foliage  crawls  all  over  one  side  of  the  language.  This 
is  what  may  be  called  the  first,  the  vulgar  aspect  of  slang.  But, 
for  those  who  study  the  tongue  as  it  should  be  studied,  that  is 
to  say,  as  geologists  study  the  earth,  slang  appears  like  a 
veritable  alluvial  deposit.  According  as  one  digs  a  longer  or 
shorter  distance  into  it,  one  finds  in  slang,  below  tbe  old  pop- 
ular French,  Provengal,  Spanish,  Italian,  Levantine,  that  lan- 
guage of  the  Mediterranean  ports,  English  and  German,  the 
.Romance  language  in  its  three  varieties,  French,  Italian,  and 
Romance  Romance,  Latin,  and  finally  Basque  and  Celtic.  A 
profound  and  unique  formation.  A  subterranean  edifice 
erected  in  common  by  all  the  miserable.  Each  accursed  race 
has  deposited  its  layer,  each  suffering  has  dropped  its  stone 
there,  each  heart  has  contributed  its  pebble.  A  throng  of 
evil,  base,  or  irritated  souls,  who  have  traversed  life  and  have 


8LANG  197 

vanished  into  eternity,  linger  there  almost  entirely  visible  still 
beneath  the  form  of  some  monstrous  word. 

Do  you  want  Spanish  ?  The  old  Gothic  slang  abounded  in 
it.  Here  is  boffete,  a  box  on  the  ear,  which  is  derived  from 
bofr.ton;  vantane,  window  (later  on  vantcrne),  which  comes 
from  vantana;  gat,  cat,  which  comes  from  gato;  acite,  oil, 
which  comes  from  aceytc.  Do  you  want  Italian?  Here  is 
spade,  sword,  which  comes  from  spada;  carvel,  boat,  which 
conies  from  caravella.  Do  you  want  English?  Here  is  bichot. 
which  comes  from  bishop;  raillc,  spy,  which  conies  from  ras- 
cal, rascalion;  pilche,  a  case,  which  comes  from  pilch  er,  a 
sheath.  Do  you  want  German?  Here  is  the  caleur,  the  waiter, 
kellner;  the  hers,  the  master,  herzog  (duke).  Do  you  want 
Latin?  Here  is  frangir,  to  break,  frangere ;  affurer,  to  steal, 
fur;  cadene,  chain,  catena.  There  is  one  word  which  crops  up 
in  every  language  of  the  continent,  with  a  sort  of  mysterious 
power  and  authority.  It  is  the  word  magnus;  the  Scotchman 
makes  of  it  his  mac,  which  designates  the  chief  of  the  clan ; 
Mac-Farlane,  Mac-Callumore,  the  great  Farlane,  the  great 
Callumore1 ;  slang  turns  it  into  meek  and  later  le  meg,  that  is 
to  say,  God.  Would  you  like  Basque?  Here  is  gahisto,  the 
devil,  which  comes  from  gaiztoa.  evil ;  sorgabon,  good  night, 
which  comes  from  gabon,  good  evening.  Do  you  want  Celtic? 
Here  is  blavin,  a  handkerchief,  which  conies  from  bhtrcf. 
gushing  water;  menessr.,  a  woman  (in  a  bad  sense),  which 
comes  from  mcinec,  full  of  stones;  barant,  brook,  from  banui- 
ion,  fountain;  goffcur.  locksmith,  from  goff.  blacksmith; 
guedouze,  death,  which  comes  from  gue.nn-du.  black-white. 
Finally,  would  you  like  history?  Slang  calls  crowns  Ics  mal- 
teses,  a  souvenir  of  the  coin  in  circulation  on  the  galleys  of 
Malta. 

In  addition  to  the  philological  origins  just  indicated,  slang 
possesses  other  and  still  more  natural  roots,  which  spring,  so 
to  speak,  from  the  mind  of  man  itself. 

In  the  first  place,  the  direct  creation  of  words.  Therein  lies 
the  mystery  of  tongues.  To  paint  with  words,  which  cou- 
'lt  must  be  observed,  however,  that  m«c  in  Celtic  means  svn. 


198  8AWTDEXI8 

tains  figures  one  knows  not  how  or  why,  is  the  primitive  foun- 
dation of  all  human  languages,  what  may  be  called  their 
granite. 

Slang  abounds  in  words  of  this  description,  immediate 
words,  words  created  instantaneously  no  one  knows  either 
where  or  by  whom,  without  etymology,  without  analogies, 
without  derivatives,  solitary,  barbarous,  sometimes  hideous 
words,  which  at  times  possess  a  singular  power  of  expression 
and  which  live.  The  executioner,  le  taule;  the  forest,  le  sabri; 
fear,  flight,  taf ;  the  lackey,  le  larbin;  the  mineral,  the  prefect, 
the  minister,  pharos;  the  devil,  le  rabouin.  Nothing  is 
stranger  than  these  words  which  both  mask  and  reveal.  Some, 
le  rabouin,  for  example,  are  at  the  same  time  grotesque  and 
terrible,  and  produce  on  you  the  effect  of  a  cyclopean 
grimace. 

In  the  second  place,  metaphor.  The  peculiarity  of  a  lan- 
guage which  is  desirous  of  saying  all  yet  concealing  all  is  that 
it  is  rich  in  figures.  Metaphor  is  an  enigma,  wherein  the  thief 
who  is  plotting  a  stroke,  the  prisoner  who  is  arranging  an 
escape,  take  refuge.  No  idiom  is  more  metaphorical  than 
slang :  devisser  le  coco  (to  unscrew  the  nut),  to  twist  the  neck ; 
tortiller  (to  wriggle),  to  eat;  etre  gerbe,  to  be  tried;  a  rat,  & 
bread  thief;  il  lansquine,  it  rains,  a  striking,  ancient  figure 
which  partly  bears  its  date  about  it,  which  assimilates  long  ob- 
lique lines  of  rain,  with  the  dense  and  slanting  pikes  of  the 
lancers,  and  which  compresses  into  a  single  word  the  popular 
expression :  it  rains  halberds.  Sometimes,  in  proportion  as 
slang  progresses  from  the  first  epoch  to  the  second,  words  pass 
from  the  primitive  and  savage  sense  to  the  metaphorical  sense. 
The  devil  ceases  to  be  le  rabouin,  and  becomes  le  boulanger 
(the  baker),  who  puts  the  bread  into  the  oven.  This  is  more 
witty,  but  less  grand,  something  like  Racine  after  Cornel  lie, 
like  Euripides  after  yEschylus.  Certain  slang  phrases  which 
participate  in  the  two  epochs  and  have  at  once  the  barbaric 
character  and  the  metaphorical  character  resemble  phantasma- 
gories.  Les  sorgueuers  vont  solliciter  des  gails  a  la  lune — the 
prowlers  are  going  to  steal  horses  by  night, — this  passes  before 


SLANG  199 

the  mind  like  a  group  of  spectres.  One  knows  not  what 
one  sees. 

In  the  third  place,  the  expedient.  Slang  lives  on  the  lan- 
guage. It  uses  it  in  accordance  with  its  fancy,  it  dips  into  it 
hap-hazard,  and  it  often  confines  itself,  when  occasion  arises, 
to  alter  it  in  a  gross  and  summary  fashion.  Occasionally,  with 
the  ordinary  words  thus  deformed  and  complicated  with  words 
of  pure  slang,  picturesque  phrases  are  formed,  in  which  there 
can  be  felt  the  mixture  of  the  two  preceding  elements,  the 
direct  creation  and  the  metaphor :  le  cab  jaspine,  je  marronne 
que  la  roulotte  de  Pantin  trime  dans  le  sabri,  the  dog  is  bark- 
ing, I  suspect  that  the  diligence  for  Paris  is  passing  through 
the  woods.  Le  dab  est  sinve,  la  dabuge  est  merloussiere,  la 
fee  est  bative,i\\e  bourgeois  is  stupid,  the  bonrgeoise  is  cunning, 
the  daughter  is  pretty.  Generally,  to  throw  listeners  off  the 
track,  slang  confines  itself  to  adding  to  all  the  words  of  the 
language  without  distinction,  an  ignoble  tail,  a  termination 
in  aille,  in  orgue,  in  iergue,  or  in  uclie.  Thus:  Vousiergue 
trouvaille  bonorgue  ce  gigotmuche?  Do  you  think  that  leg 
of  mutton  good  ?  A  phrase  addressed  by  Cartouche  to  a  turn- 
key in  order  to  find  out  whether  the  sum  offered  for  his  escape 
suited  him. 

The  termination  in  mar  has  been  added  recently. 

Slang,  being  the  dialect  of  corruption,  quickly  becomes  cor- 
rupted itself.  Besides  this,  as  it  is  always  seeking  conceal- 
ment, as  soon  as  it  feels  that  it  is  understood,  it  changes  its 
form.  Contrary  to  what  happens  with  every  other  vegetation, 
every  ray  of  light  which  falls  upon  it  kills  whatever  it  touches. 
Thus  slang  is  in  constant  process  of  decomposition  and  recom- 
position ;  an  obscure  and  rapid  work  which  never  pauses.  It 
passes  over  more  ground  in  ten  years  than  a  language  in  ten 
centuries.  Thus  le  larton  (bread)  becomes  le  lartif :  Je  (jail 
(horse)  becomes  le  gaye ;  la  fertanche  (straw)  becomes  la  fer- 
tille;  le  momignard  (brat),  le  momacqne :  leu  fiques  (duds), 
frusques ;  la  ckiqnc  (the  church),  I'egrugcoir;  le  colabre 
(neck),  le  colas.  The  devil  is  at  first,  gainst o,  then  le  rabouin, 
then  the  baker;  the  priest  is  a  raiichon,  then  the  boar  (le 


200  SAINT-DENIS 

sanglier)  ;  the  dagger  is  le  vingt-deux  (twenty-two),  then  le 
surin,  then  le  lingre;  the  police  are  rallies,  then  roussins,  then 
rousses,  then  marchands  de  lacets  (dealers  in  stay-laces),  then 
coquers,  then  cognes;  the  executioner  is  le  taulc,  then  Chariot, 
I'atigeur,  then  le  lecqiiillard.  In  the  seventeenth  century,  to 
fight  was  "to  give  each  other  snuff";  in  the  nineteenth  it 
is  "to  chew  each  other's  throats."  There  have  been  twenty 
different  phrases  between  these  two  extremes.  Cartouche's 
talk  would  have  been  Hebrew  to  Lacenaire.  All  the  words  of 
this  language  are  perpetually  engaged  in  flight  like  the  men 
who  utter  them. 

Still,  from  time  to  time,  and  in  consequence  of  this  very 
movement,  the  ancient  slang  crops  up  again  and  becomes  new 
once  more.  It  has  its  headquarters  where  it  maintains  its 
sway.  The  Temple  preserved  the  slang  of  the  seventeenth 
century ;  Bicetre,  when  it  was  a  prison,  preserved  the  slang  of 
Thunes.  There  one  could  hear  the  termination  in  anche  of 
the  old  Thuneurs.  Boyanches-tu  (bois-tu),  do  you  drink? 
But  perpetual  movement  remains  its  law,  nevertheless. 

If  the  philosopher  succeeds  in  fixing,  for  a  moment,  for 
purposes  of  observation,  this  language  which  is  incessantly 
evaporating,  he  falls  into  doleful  and  useful  meditation.  No 
study  is  more  efficacious  and  more  fecund  in  instruction. 
There  is  not  a  metaphor,  not  an  analogy,  in  slang,  which  does 
not  contain  a  lesson.  Among  these  men,  to  beat  means  to 
feign ;  one  beats  a  malady ;  ruse  is  their  strength. 

For  them,  the  idea  of  the  man  is  not  separated  from  the 
idea  of  darkness.  The  night  is  called  la  sorgue;  man,  I'orgue. 
Man  is  a  derivative  of  the  night. 

They  have  taken  up  the  practice  of  considering  society  in 
the  light  of  an  atmosphere  which  kills  them,  of  a  fatal  force, 
and  they  speak  of  their  liberty  as  one  would  speak  of  his 
health.  A  man  under  arrest  is  a  sick  man;  one  who  is  con- 
demned is  a  dead  man. 

The  most  terrible  thing  for  the  prisoner  within  the  four 
falls  in  which  he  is  buried,  is  a  sort  of  glacial  chastity,  and  he 
calls  the  dungeon  the  castus.  In  that  funereal  place,  life  out- 


SLANG  201 

side  always  presents  itself  under  its  most  smiling  aspect.  The 
prisoner  has  irons  on  his  feet;  you  think,  perhaps,  that  his 
thought  is  that  it  is  with  the  feet  that  one  walks?  Xo;  he 
is  thinking  that  it  is  with  the  feet  that  one  dances ;  so,  when 
he  has  succeeded  in  severing  his  fetters,  his  first  idea  is  that 
now  he  can  dance,  and  he  calls  the  saw  the  bastringue  (public- 
house  ball). — A  name  is  a  centre;  profound  assimilation. — 
The  ruffian  has  two  heads,  one  of  which  reasons  out  his  actions 
and  leads  him  all  his  life  long,  and  the  other  which  he  has 
upon  his  shoulders  on  the  day  of  his  death ;  he  calls  the  head 
which  counsels  him  in  crime  la  sorbonne,  and  the  head  which 
expiates  it  la  tranche. — When  a  man  has  no  longer  anything 
but  rags  upon  his  body  and  vices  in  his  heart,  when  he  has 
arrived  at  that  double  moral  and  material  degradation  which 
the  word  blackguard  characterizes  in  its  two  acceptations,  he 
is  ripe  for  crime ;  he  is  like  a  well-whetted  knife ;  he  has  two 
cutting  edges,  his  distress  and  his  malice;  so  slang  does  not 
say  a  blackguard,  it  says  un  reguise. — What  are  the  galleys? 
A  brazier  of  damnation,  a  hell.  The  convict  calls  himself  a 
fagot. — And  finally,  what  name  do  malefactors  give  to  their 
prison?  The  college.  A  whole  penitentiary  system  can  be 
evolved  from  that  word. 

Does  the  reader  wish  to  know  where  the  majority  of  the 
songs  of  the  galleys,  those  refrains  called  in  the  special  vocab- 
ulary lirlonfa,  have  had  their  birth? 

Let  him  listen  to  what  follows: — 

There  existed  at  the  Chatelet  in  Paris  a  large  and  long 
cellar.  This  cellar  was  eight  feet  below  the  level  of  the  Seine. 
It  had  neither  windows  nor  air-holes,  its  only  aperture  was  the 
door  ;  men  could  enter  there,  air  could  not.  This  vault  had  for 
ceiling  a  vault  of  stone,  and  for  floor  ten  inches  of  mud.  It 
was  flagged  ;  but  the  pavement  had  rotted  and  cracked  under 
the  oozing  of  the  water.  Eight  feet  above  the  floor,  a  long 
and  massive  beam  traversed  this  subterranean  excavation  from 
side  to  side;  from  this  beam  hung,  at  short  distances  apart, 
chains  three  feet  long,  and  at  the  end  of  these  chains  there 
were  rings  for  the  neck.  In  this  vault  men  who  had  been 


202  SAIXT-DEN1S 

condemned  to  the  galleys  were  incarcerated  until  the  day  of 
their  departure  for  Toulon.  They  were  thrust  under  this 
beam,  where  each  one  found  his  fetters  swinging  in  the  dark- 
ness and  waiting  for  him. 

The  chains,  those  pendant  arms,  and  the  necklet?,  those 
open  hands,  caught  the  unhappy  wretches  by  the  throat.  They 
were  rivetted  and  left  there.  As  the  chain  was  too  short, 
they  could  not  lie  down.  They  remained  motionless  in  that 
cavern,  in  that  night,  beneath  that  beam,  almost  hanging, 
forced  to  unheard-of  efforts  to  reach  their  bread,  jug,  or  their 
vault  overhead,  mud  even  to  mid-leg,  filth  flowing  to  their 
very  calves,  broken  asunder  with  fatigue,  with  thighs  and 
knees  giving  way,  clinging  fast  to  the  chain  with  their  hands 
in  order  to  obtain  some  rest,  unable  to  sleep  except  when 
standing  erect,  and  awakened  every  moment  by  the  strangling 
of  the  collar;  some  woke  no  more.  In  order  to  eat.  they 
pushed  the  bread,  which  was  flung  to  them  in  the  mud.  along 
their  leg  with  their  heel  until  it  reached  their  hand. 

How  long  did  they  remain  thus  ?  One  month,  two  months, 
six  months  sometimes ;  one  stayed  a  year.  It  was  the  ante- 
chamber of  the  galleys.  Men  were  put  there  for  stealing  a 
hare  from  the  king.  In  this  sepulchre-hell,  what  did  they 
do?  What  man  can  do  in  a  sepulchre,  they  went  through  the 
agonies  of  death,  and  what  can  man  do  in  hell,  they  sang;  for 
song  lingers  where  there  is  no  longer  any  hope.  In  the  waters 
of  Malta,  when  a  galley  was  approaching,  the  song  could  be 
heard  before  the  sound  of  the  oars.  Poor  Survincent,  the 
poacher,  who  had  gone  through  the  prison-cellar  of  the  Chate- 
let,  said :  "It  was  the  rhymes  that  kept  me  up."  Uselessness 
of  poetry.  What  is  the  good  of  rhyme? 

It  is  in  this  cellar  that  nearly  all  the  slang  songs  had  their 
birth.  It  is  from  the  dungeon  of  the  Grand-Chatelet  of  Paris 
that  comes  the  melancholy  refrain  of  the  Montgomery  galley : 
"Timaloumisaine,  timalonmison."  The  majority  of  these 
songs  are  melancholy ;  some  are  gay ;  one  is  tender : — 

Icicaille  est  la  theatre         Here  is  the  theatre 

Du  petit  dardant.  Of  the  little  archer  (Cupid). 


SLAtJO  203 

Do  what  you  will,  you  cannot  annihilate  that  eternal  relic 
in  the  heart  of  man,  love. 

In  this  world  of  dismal  deeds,  people  keep  their  secrets. 
The  secret  is  the  thing  above  all  others.  The  secret,  in  the 
eyes  of  these  wretches,  is  unity  which  serves  as  a  base  of 
union.  To  betray  a  secret  is  to  tear  from  each  member  of  this 
fierce  community  something  of  his  own  personality.  To 
inform  against,  in  the  energetic  slang  dialect,  is  called :  "to 
eat  the  bit."  As  though  the  informer  drew  to  himself  a  little 
of  the  substance  of  all  and  nourished  himself  on  a  bit  of  each 
one's  flesh. 

What  does  it  signify  to  receive  a  box  on  the  ear?  Common- 
place metaphor  replies:  "It  is  to  see  thirty-six  candles." 
Here  slang  intervenes  and  takes  it  up:  Candle,  camoufle. 
Thereupon,  the  ordinary  tongue  gives  camouflct1  as  the  syno- 
nym for  soufflct.  Thus,  by  a  sort  of  infiltration  from  below 
upwards,  with  the  aid  of  metaphor,  that  incalculable,  trajec- 
tory slang  mounts  from  the  cavern  to  the  Academy ;  and 
Poulailler  saying:  "I  light  my  camoufle,"  causes  Voltaire  to 
write:  "Langleviel  La  Beaumellc  deserves  a  hundred  camou- 
flets." 

Researches  in  slang  mean  discoveries  at  every  step.  Study 
and  investigation  of  this  strange  idiom  lead  to  the  mysterious 
point  of  intersection  of  regular  society  with  society  which  is 
accursed. 

The  thief  also  has  his  food  for  cannon,  stealable  matter, 
you,  I,  whoever  passes  by;  le  pantre.  (Pan,  everybody.) 

Slang  is  language  turned  convict. 

That  the  thinking  principle  of  man  be  thrust  down  ever  so 
low,  that  it  can  be  dragged  and  pinioned  there  by  obscure 
tyrannies  of  fatality,  that  it  can  be  bound  by  no  one  knows 
what  fetters  in  that  abyss,  is  sufficient  to  create  consternation. 

Oh,  poor  thought  of  miserable  wretches ! 

Alas !  will  no  one  come  to  the  succor  of  the  human  soul  in 
that  darkness?  Is  it  her  destiny  there  to  await  forever  the 
mind,  the  liberator,  the  immense  rider  of  Pegasi  and  hippo- 
'Siuoke  puffed  in  the  face  of  a  person  asleep. 


griffs,  the  combatant  of  heroes  of  the  dawn  who  shall  descend 
from  the  azure  between  two  wings,  the  radiant  knight  of  the 
future?  Will  she  forever  summon  in  vain  to  her  assistance 
the  lance  of  light  of  the  ideal?  Is  she  condemned  to  hear  the 
fearful  approach  of  Evil  through  the  density  of  the  gulf,  and 
to  catch  glimpses,  nearer  and  nearer  at  hand,  beneath  the 
hideous  water,  of  that  dragon's  head,  that  maw  streaked  with 
foarn,  and  that  writhing  undulation  of  claws,  swellings,  and 
rings?  Must  it  remain  there,  without  a  gleam  of  light,  with- 
out hope,  given  over  to  that  terrible  approach,  vaguely  scented 
out  by  the  monster,  shuddering,  dishevelled,  wringing  its 
arms,  forever  chained  to  the  rock  of  night,  a  sombre  Andro- 
meda white  and  naked  amid  the  shadows ! 


CHAPTER  III 

SLANG  WHICH  WEEPS  AND  SLANG  WHICH  LAUGHS 

As  the  reader  perceives,  slang  in  its  entirety,  slang  of  four 
hundred  years  ago,  like  the  slang  of  to-day,  is  permeated  with 
that  sombre,  symbolical  spirit  which  gives  to  all  words  a  mien 
which  is  now  mournful,  now  menacing.  One  feels  in  it  the 
wild  and  ancient  sadness  of  those  vagrants  of  the  Court  of 
Miracles  who  played  at  cards  with  packs  of  their  own,  sonic 
of  which  have  come  down  to  us.  The  eight  of  clubs,  for 
instance,  represented  a  huge  tree  bearing  eight  enormous 
trefoil  leaves,  a  sort  of  fantastic  personification  of  the  forest. 
At  the  foot  of  this  tree  a  fire  was  burning,  over  which  three 
hares  were  roasting  a  huntsman  on  a  spit,  and  behind  him. 
on  another  fire,  hung  a  steaming  pot,  whence  emerged  the 
head  of  a  dog.  Nothing  can  be  more  melancholy  than  these 
reprisals  in  painting,  by  a  pack  of  cards,  in  the  presence  of 
stakes  for  the  roasting  of  smugglers  and  of  the  cauldron  for 
the  boiling  of  counterfeiters.  The  diverse  forms  assumed  by 
thought  in  the  realm  of  slang,  even  song,  even  raillery,  even 
ineiiuc.-e,  all  partook  of  this  powerless  and  dejected  character. 


BLANO  205 

All  the  songs,  the  melodies  of  some  of  which  have  been  col- 
lected, were  humble  and  lamentable  to  the  point  of  evoking 
tears.  The  pegre  is  always  the  poor  pegre,  and  he  is  always 
the  hare  in  hiding,  the  fugitive  mouse,  the  flying  bird.  Pie 
hardly  complains,  he  contents  himself  with  sighing;  one  of 
liis  moans  has  come  down  to  us:  "I  do  not  understand  how 
(Jod,  the  father  of  men,  can  torture  his  children  and  his 
grandchildren  and  hear  them  cry,  without  himself  suffering 
torture."1  The  wretch,  whenever  he  has  time  to  think,  makes 
himself  small  before  the  low,  and  frail  in  the  presence  of 
.society ;  he'lies  down  flat  on  his  face,  he  entreats,  he  appeals 
to  the  side  of  compassion;  we  feel  that  he  is  conscious  of  his 
guilt. 

Towards  the  middle  of  the  last  century  a  change  took  place, 
prison  songs  and  thieves'  ritournelles  assumed,  so  to  speak,  an 
insolent  and  jovial  mien.  The  plaintive  inalure  was  replaced 
by  the  larifla.  We  find  in  the  eighteenth  century,  in  nearh 
all  the  songs  of  the  galleys  and  prisons,  a  diabolical  and  enig- 
matical gayety.  We  hear  this  strident  and  lilting  refrain 
which  we  should  say  had  been  lighted  up  by  a  phosphorescent 
gleam,  and  which  seems  to  have  been  flung  into  the  forest  by 
a  will-o'-the-wisp  playing  the  fife: — 

Miralabi  suslababo 
Mirliton  ribonribette 
Surlababi  niirlababo 
Mirliton  ribonribo. 

This  was  sung  in  a  cellar  or  in  a  nook  of  the  forest  while 
cutting  a  man's  throat. 

A  serious  symptom.  In  the  eighteenth  century,  the  ancient 
melancholy  of  the  dejected  classes  vanishes.  They  began  to 
laugh.  They  rally  the  grand  meg  and  the  grand  dnb.  (liven 
Louis  XV.  they  call  the  King  of  France  "le  Marquis  de 
1'antin."  And  behold,  they  are  almost  gay.  A  sort  of  gleam 
proceeds  from  these  miserable  wretches,  as  though  their 

Me  n'cntrave  que  le  dail  comment  meek,  le  damn  des  orpues.  pent 
ntijjer  .ses  mflmes  et  aes  momignards  et  les  locher  criblant  sans  etre 
agit6  lui-meme. 


206  SAINT-DENIS 

consciences  were  not  heavy  within  them  any  more.  These 
lamentable  tribes  of  darkness  have  no  longer  merely  the  des- 
perate audacity  of  actions,  they  possess  the  heedless  audacity 
of  mind.  A  sign  that  they  are  losing  the  sense  of  their  crimi- 
nality, and  that  they  feel,  even  among  thinkers  and  dreamers, 
some  indefinable  support  which  the  latter  themselves  know  not 
of.  A  sign  that  theft  and  pillage  are  beginning  to  filter  into 
doctrines  and  sophisms,  in  such  a  way  as  to  lose  somewhat  of 
their  ugliness,  while  communicating  much  of  it  to  sophisms 
and  doctrines.  A  sign,  in  short,  of  some  outbreak  which  is 
prodigious  and  near  unless  some  diversion  shall  arise. 

Let  us  pause  a  moment.  Whom  are  we  accusing  here?  Is 
it  the  eighteenth  century?  Is  it  philosophy?  Certainly  not. 
The  work  of  the  eighteenth  century  is  healthy  and  good  and 
wholesome.  The  encyclopedists,  Diderot  at  their  head ;  the 
physiocrates,  Turgot  at  their  head ;  the  philosophers,  Voltaire 
at  their  head;  the  Utopians,  Rousseau  at  their  head, — these 
are  four  sacred  legions.  Humanity's  immense  advance 
towards  the  light  is  due  to  them.  They  are  the  four  van- 
guards of  the  human  race,  marching  towards  the  four  cardinal 
points  of  progress.  Diderot  towards  the  beautiful,  Turgot 
towards  the  useful,  Voltaire  towards  the  true,  Rousseau 
towards  the  just.  But  by  the  side  of  and  above  the  philoso- 
phers, there  were  the  sophists,  a  venomous  vegetation  mingled 
with  a  healthy  growth,  hemlock  in  the  virgin  forest.  While 
the  executioner  was  burning  the  great  books  of  the  liberators 
of  the  century  on  the  grand  staircase  of  the  court-house, 
writers  now  forgotten  were  publishing,  with  the  King's  sanc- 
tion, no  one  knows  what  strangely  disorganizing  writings, 
which  were  eagerly  read  by  the  unfortunate.  Some  of  these 
publications,  odd  to  say,  which  were  patronized  by  a  prince, 
are  to  be  found  in  the  Secret  Library.  These  facts,  significant 
but  unknown,  were  imperceptible  on  the  surface.  Sometimes, 
in  the  very  obscurity  of  a  fact  lurks  its  danger.  It  is  obscure 
because  it  is  underhand.  Of  all  these  writers,  the  one  who 
probably  then  excavated  in  the  masses  the  most  unhealthy 
gallery  was  Restif  de  La  Bretonne. 


NLANG  207 

This  work,  peculiar  to  the  whole  of  Europe,  effected  more 
ravages  in  German}'  than  anywhere  else.  In  Germany,  during 
a  given  period,  summed  up  by  Schiller  in  his  famous  drama 
The  Robbers,  theft  and  pillage  rose  up  in  protest  against 
property  and  labor,  assimilated  certain  specious  and  false 
elementary  ideas,  which,  though  just  in  appearance,  were 
absurd  in  reality,  enveloped  themselves  in  these  ideas,  disap- 
peared within  them,  after  a  fashion,  assumed  an  abstract 
name,  passed  into  the  state  of  theory,  and  in  that  shape  circu- 
lated among  the  laborious,  suffering,  and  honest  masses, 
unknown  even  to  the  imprudent  chemists  who  had  prepared 
the  mixture,  unknown  even  to  the  masses  who  accepted  it. 
Whenever  a  fact  of  this  sort  presents  itself,  the  case  is  grave. 
Suffering  engenders  wrath ;  and  while  the  prosperous  classes 
blind  themselves  or  fall  asleep,  which  is  the  same  thing  as 
shutting  one's  eyes,  the  hatred  of  the  unfortunate  classes 
lights  its  torch  at  some  aggrieved  or  ill-made  spirit  which 
dreams  in  a  corner,  and  sets  itself  to  the  scrutiny  of  society. 
The  scrutiny  of  hatred  is  a  terrible  thing. 

Hence,  if  the  ill-fortune  of  the  times  so  wills  it,  those  fear- 
ful commotions  which  were  formerly  called  jacqueries,  beside 
which  purely  political  agitations  are  the  merest  child's  play, 
which  are  no  longer  the  conflict  of  the  oppressed  and  the 
oppressor,  but  the  revolt  of  discomfort  against  comfort.  Then 
everything  crumbles. 

Jacqueries  are  earthquakes  of  the  people. 

It  is  this  peril,  possibly  imminent  towards  the  close  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  which  the  French  Revolution,  that  im- 
mense act  of  probity,  cut  short. 

The  French  Revolution,  which  is  nothing  else  than  the  idea 
armed  with  the  sword,  rose  erect,  and,  with  the  same  abrupt 
movement,  closed  the  door  of  ill  and  opened  the  door  of  good. 

It  put  a  stop  to  torture,  promulgated  the  truth,  expelled 
miasma,  rendered  the  century  healthy,  crowned  the  populace. 

It  may  be  said  of  it  that  it  created  mm  a  second  time,  by 
giving  him  a  second  soul,  the  right. 

The  nineteenth  century  has  inherited  and  profited  by  its 


208  SAI\T  DKNIS 

work,  and  to-day,  the  social  catastrophe  to  which  we  lately 
alluded  is  simply  impossible.  Blind  is  he  who  announces  it! 
Foolish  is  he  who  fears  it !  Revolution  is  the  vaccine  of 
Jacquerie. 

Thanks  to  the  Revolution,  social  conditions  have  changed. 
Feudal  and  monarchical  maladies  no  longer  run  in  our  blood. 
There  is  no  more  of  the  Middle  Ages  in  our  constitution.  We 
no  longer  live  in  the  days  when  terrible  swarms  within  made 
irruptions,  when  one  heard  beneath  his  feet  the  obscure  course 
of  a  dull  rumble,  when  indescribable  elevations  from  mole-like 
tunnels  appeared  on  the  surface  of  civilization,  where  the  soil 
cracked  open,  where  the  roofs  of  caverns  yawned,  and  where 
one  suddenly  beheld  monstrous  heads  emerging  from  the 
earth. 

The  revolutionary  sense  is  a  moral  sense.  The  sentiment  of 
right,  once  developed,  develops  the  sentiment  of  duty.  The 
law  of  all  is  liberty,  which  ends  where  the  liberty  of  others 
begins,  according  to  Robespierre's  admirable  definition.  Since 
'89,  the  whole  people  has  been  dilating  into  a  sublime  indi- 
vidual ;  there  is  not  a  poor  man,  who,  possessing  his  right,  has 
not  his  ray  of  sun ;  the  die-of-hunger  feels  within  him  the 
honesty  of  France ;  the  dignity  of  the  citizen  is  an  internal 
armor;  he  who  is  free  is  scrupulous;  he  who  votes  reigns. 
Hence  incorruptibility;  hence  the  miscarriage  of  unhealthy 
lusts;  hence  eyes  heroically  lowered  before  temptations.  The 
revolutionary  wholesomeness  is  such,  that  on  a  day  of  deliver- 
ance, a  14th  of  July,  a  10th  of  August,  there  is  no  longer 
any  populace.  The  first  cry  of  the  enlightened  and  increasing 
throngs  is:  death  to  thieves!  Progress  is  an  honest  man; 
the  ideal  and  the  absolute  do  not  filch  pocket-handkerchiefs. 
By  whom  were  the  wagons  containing  the  wealth  of  the 
Tuileries  escorted  in  1848?  By  the  rag-pickers  of  the  Fau- 
bourg Saint-Antoine.  Rags  mounted  guard  over  the  treasure. 
Virtue  rendered  these  tatterdemalions  resplendent.  In  those 
wagons  in  chests,  hardly  closed,  and  some,  even,  half-open, 
amid  a  hundred  dazzling  caskets,  was  that  ancient  crown  of 
France,  studded  with  diamonds,  surmounted  by  the  carbuncle 


SLANG  209 

of  royalty,  by  the  Regent  diamond,  which  was  worth  thirty 
millions.     Barefooted,  they  guarded  that  crown. 

Hence,  no  more  Jacquerie.  I  regret  it  for  the  sake  of  the 
skilful.  The  old  fear  lias  produced  its  last  effects  in  that 
quarter;  and  henceforth  it  can  no  longer  be  employed  in  poli- 
tics. The  principal  spring  of  the  red  spectre  is  broken.  Every 
one  knows  it  now.  The  scare-crow  scares  no  longer.  The 
birds  take  liberties  with  the  mannikin,  foul  creatures  alight 
upon  it,  the  bourgeois  laugh  at  it. 


CHAPTER   IV 

THE  TWO  DUTIES  :   TO   WATCH  AND  TO  HOPE 

THIS  being  the  case,  is  all  social  danger  dispelled?  Cer- 
tainly not.  There  is  no  Jacquerie ;  society  may  rest  assured  on 
that  point ;  blood  will  no  longer  rush  to  its  head.  But  let 
society  take  heed  to  the  manner  in  which  it  breathes.  Apo- 
plexy is  no  longer  to  be  feared,  but  phthisis  is  there.  Social 
phthisis  is  called  misery. 

One  can  perish  from  being  undermined  as  well  as  from 
being  struck  by  lightning. 

Let  us  not  weary  of  repeating,  and  sympathetic  souls  must 
not  forget  that  this  is  the  first  of  fraternal  obligations,  and 
selfish  hearts  must  understand  that  the  first  of  political  ne- 
cessities consists  in  thinking  first  of  all  of  the  disinherited  and 
sorrowing  throngs,  in  solacing,  airing,  enlightening,  loving 
them,  in  enlarging  their  horizon  to  a  magnificent  extent,  in 
lavishing  upon  them  education  in  every  form,  in  oiTering  them 
the  example  of  labor,  never  the  example  of  idleness,  in  dimin- 
ishing the  individual  burden  by  enlarging  the  notion  of  the 
universal  aim,  in  setting  a  limit  to  poverty  without  setting  a 
limit  to  wealth,  in  creating  vast  fields  of  public  and  popular 
activity,  in  having,  like  Briareus,  a  hundred  hands  to  extend  in 
all  directions  to  the  oppressed  and  the  feeble,  in  employing 
the  collective  power  for  that  grand  duty  of  opening  workshops 


210  SAINT-DENIS 

for  all  arms,  schools  for  all  aptitudes,  and  laboratories  for  all 
degrees  of  intelligence,  in  augmenting  salaries,  diminishing 
trouble,  balancing  what  should  be  and  what  is,  that  is  to  say, 
in  proportioning  enjoyment  to  effort  and  a  glut  to  need ;  in  a 
word,  in  evolving  from  the  social  apparatus  more  light  and 
more  comfort  for  the  benefit  of  those  who  suffer  and  those  who 
are  ignorant. 

And,  let  us  say  it,  all  this  is  but  the  beginning.  The  true 
question  is  this :  labor  cannot  be  a  law  without  being  a  right. 

We  will  not  insist  upon  this  point;  this  is  not  the  proper 
place  for  that. 

If  nature  calls  itself  Providence,  society  should  call  itself 
foresight. 

Intellectual  and  moral  growth  is  no  less  indispensable  than 
material  improvement.  To  know  is  a  sacrament,  to  think  is 
the  prime  necessity,  truth  is  nourishment  as  well  as  grain.  A 
reason  which  fasts  from  science  and  wisdom  grows  thin.  Let 
us  enter  equal  complaint  against  stomachs  and  minds  which 
do  not  eat.  If  there  is  anything  more  heart-breaking  than  a 
body  perishing  for  lack  of  bread,  it  is  a  soul  which  is  dying 
from  hunger  for  the  light. 

The  whole  of  progress  tends  in  the  direction  of  solution. 
Some  day  we  shall  be  amazed.  As  the  human  race  mounts 
upward,  the  deep  layers  emerge  naturally  from  the  zone  of 
distress.  The  obliteration  of  misery  will  be  accomplished  by  a 
simple  elevation  of  level. 

We  should  do  wrong  were  we  to  doubt  this  blessed  con- 
summation. 

The  past  is  very  strong,  it  is  true,  at  the  present  moment. 
It  censures.  This  rejuvenation  of  a  corpse  is  surprising.  Be- 
hold, it  is  walking  and  advancing.  It  seems  a  victor ;  this  dead 
body  is  a  conqiieror.  He  arrives  with  his  legions,  superstitions, 
with  his  sword,  despotism,  with  his  banner,  ignorance;  a  while 
ago,  he  won  ten  battles.  He  advances,  he  threatens,  he  laughs, 
he  is  at  our  doors.  Let  us  not  despair,  on  our  side.  Let  us 
sell  the  field  on  which  Hannibal  is  encamped. 

What  have  we  to  fear,  we  who  believe? 


SLANG  211 

No  such  thing  as  a  back-flow  of  ideas  exists  any  more  than 
there  exists  a  return  of  a  river  on  its  course. 

But  let  those  who  do  not  desire  a  future  reflect  on  this 
matter.  When  they  say  "no"  to  progress,  it  is  not  the  future 
but  themselves  that  they  are  condemning.  They  are  giving 
themselves  a  sad  malady ;  they  are  inoculating  themselves  with 
the  past.  There  is  but  one  way  of  rejecting  To-morrow,  and 
that  is  to  die. 

Now,  no  death,  that  of  the  body  as  late  as  possible,  that  of 
the  soul  never, — this  is  what  we  desire. 

Yes,  the  enigma  will  utter  its  word,  the  sphinx  will  speak, 
the  problem  will  be  solved. 

Yes,  the  people,  sketched  out  by  the  eighteenth  century,  will 
be  finished  by  the  nineteenth.  He  who  doubts  this  is  an  idiot ! 
The  future  blossoming,  the  near  blossoming  forth  of  universal 
well-being,  is  a  divinely  fatal  phenomenon. 

Immense  combined  propulsions  direct  human  affairs  and 
conduct  them  within  a  given  time  to  a  logical  state,  that  is  to 
say,  to  a  state  of  equilibrium;  that  is  to  say,  to  equity.  A 
force  composed  of  earth  and  heaven  results  from  humanity 
and  governs  it ;  this  force  is  a  worker  of  miracles ;  marvellous 
issues  are  no  more  difficult  to  it  than  extraordinary  vicissi- 
tudes. Aided  by  science,  which  comes  from  one  man,  and 
by  the  event,  which  comes  from  another,  it  is  not  greatly 
alarmed  by  these  contradictions  in  the  attitude  of  problems, 
which  seem  impossibilities  to  the  vulgar  herd.  It  is  no  less 
skilful  at  causing  a  solution  to  spring  forth  from  the  recon- 
ciliation of  ideas,  than  a  lesson  from  the  reconciliation  of  facts, 
and  we  may  expect  anything  from  that  mysterious  power  of 
progress,  which  brought  the  Orient  and  the  Occident  face  to 
face  one  fine  day,  in  the  depths  of  a  sepulchre,  and  made  the 
irnaums  converse  with  Bonaparte  in  the  interior  of  the  Great 
Pyramid. 

In  the  meantime,  let  there  be  no  halt,  no  hesitation,  no 
pause  in  the  grandiose  onward  march  of  minds.  Social  phi- 
losophy consists  essentially  in  science  and  pence.  Its  object  is, 
and  its  result  mu^t  bo,  to  dissolve  wrath  by  the  study  of  an- 


212  SAINT-DENIS 

tagonisms.  It  examines,  it  scrutinizes,  it  analyzes;  then  it 
puts  together  once  more,  it  proceeds  by  means  of  reduction, 
discarding  all  hatred. 

More  than  once,  a  society  has  been  seen  to  give  way  before 
the  wind  which  is  let  loose  upon  mankind;  history  is  full  of 
the  shipwrecks  of  nations  and  empires;  manners,  customs, 
laws,  religions, — and  some  fine  day  that  unknown  force,  the 
hurricane,  passes  by  and  bears  them  all  away.  The  civiliza- 
tions of  India,  of  Chaldea,  of  Persia,  of  Syria,  of  Egypt,  have 
disappeared  one  after  the  other.  Why?  We  know  not.  What 
are  the  causes  of  these  disasters?  We  do  not  know.  Could 
these  societies  have  been  saved  ?  Was  it  their  fault  ?  Did  they 
persist  in  the  fatal  vice  which  destroyed  them?  What  is  the 
amount  of  suicide  in  these  terrible  deaths  of  a  nation  and  a 
race?  Questions  to  which  there  exists  no  reply.  Darkness 
enwraps  condemned  civilizations.  They  sprung  a  leak,  then 
they  sank.  We  have  nothing  more  to  say;  and  it  is  with  a 
sort  of  terror  that  we  look  on,  at  the  bottom  of  that  sea  which 
is  called  the  past,  behind  those  colossal  waves,  at  the  shipwreck 
of  those  immense  vessels,  Babylon,  Nineveh,  Tarsus,  Thebes, 
Eome,  beneath  the  fearful  gusts  which  emerge  from  all  the 
mouths  of  the  shadows.  But  shadows  are  there,  and  light  is 
here.  We  are  not  acquainted  with  the  maladies  of  these 
ancient  civilizations,  we  do  not  know  the  infirmities  of  our 
own.  Everywhere  upon  it  we  have  the  right  of  light,  we  con- 
template its  beauties,  we  lay  bare  its  defects.  Where  it  is  ill, 
we  probe;  and  the  sickness  once  diagnosed,  the  study  of  the 
cause  leads  to  the  discovery  of  the  remedy.  Our  civilization, 
the  work  of  twenty  centuries,  is  its  law  and  its  prodigy;  it  is 
worth  the  trouble  of  saving.  It  will  be  saved.  It  is  already 
much  to  have  solaced  it;  its  enlightenment  is  yet  another 
point.  All  the  labors  of  modern  social  philosophies  must  con- 
verge towards  this  point.  The  thinker  of  to-day  has  a  great 
duty — to  auscultate  civilization. 

We  repeat,  that  this  auscultation  brings  encouragement;  it 
is  by  this  persistence  in  encouragement  that  we  wish  to  con- 
clude these  pages,  an  austere  interlude  in  a  mournful  drama. 


BLAJfO  213 

Beneath  the  social  mortality,  we  feel  human  imperishablenes.s. 
The  globe  does  not  perish,  because  it  has  these  wounds,  craters, 
eruptions,  sulphur  pits,  here  and  there,  nor  because  of  a  vol- 
cano which  ejects  its  pus.  The  maladies  of  the  people  do  not 
kill  man. 

And  yet,  any  one  who  follows  the  course  of  social  clinics 
shakes  his  head  at  times.  The  strongest,  the  tenderest,  the 
most  logical  have  their  hours  of  weakness. 

Will  the  future  arrive  ?  It  seems  as  though  we  might  almost 
put  this  question,  when  we  behold  so  much  terrible  darkness. 
Melancholy  face-to-face  encounter  of  selfish  and  wretched.  On 
the  part  of  the  selfish,  the  prejudices,  shadows  of  costly  edu- 
cation, appetite  increasing  through  intoxication,  a  giddiness 
of  prosperity  which  dulls,  a  fear  of  suffering  which,  in  some, 
goes  as  far  as  an  aversion  for  the  suffering,  an  implacable  sat- 
isfaction, the  /  so  swollen  that  it  bars  the  soul ;  on  the  side 
of  the  wretched  covetousness,  envy,  hatred  of  seeing  others 
enjoy,  the  profound  impulses  of  the  human  beast  towards  as- 
suaging its  desires,  hearts  full  of  mist,  sadness,  need,  fatality, 
impure  and  simple  ignorance. 

Shall  we  continue  to  raise  our  eyes  to  heaven?  is  the  lumi- 
nous point  which  we  distinguish  there  one  of  those  which 
vanish?  The  ideal  is  frightful  to  behold,  thus  lost  in  the 
depths,  small,  isolated,  imperceptible,  brilliant,  but  sur- 
rounded by  those  great,  black  menaces,  monstrously  heaped 
around  it;  yet  no  more  in  danger  than  a  star  in  the  maw  of 
the  clouds. 


BOOK   EIGHTH.— ENCHANTMENTS   AND   DESOLA- 
TIONS 

CHAPTER    I 

FULL  LIGHT 

THE  reader  has  probably  understood  that  fiponine,  having 
recognized  through  the  gate,  the  inhabitant  of  that  Rue  Plumet 
whither  Magnon  had  sent  her,  had  begun  by  keeping  the  ruf- 
fians away  from  the  Rue  Plumet,  and  had  then  conducted 
Marius  thither,  and  that,  after  many  days  spent  in  ecstasy 
before  that  gate,  Marius,  drawn  on  by  that  force  which  draws 
the  iron  to  the  magnet  and  a  lover  towards  the  stones  of 
which  is  built  the  house  of  her  whom  he  loves,  had  finally 
entered  Cosette's  garden  as  Romeo  entered  the  garden  of 
Juliet.  This  had  even  proved  easier  for  him  than  for  Romeo; 
Romeo  was  obliged  to  scale  a  wall,  Marius  had  only  to  use  a 
little  force  on  one  of  the  bars  of  the  decrepit  gate  which 
vacillated  in  its  rusty  recess,  after  the  fashion  of  old  people's 
teeth.  Marius  was  slender  and  readily  passed  through. 

As  there  was  never  any  one  in  the  street,  and  as  Marius 
never  entered  the  garden  except  at  night,  he  ran  no  risk  of 
being  seen. 

Beginning  with  that  blessed  and  holy  hour  when  a  kiss  be- 
trothed these  two  souls,  Marius  was  there  every  evening.  If, 
at  that  period  of  her  existence,  Cosette  had  fallen  in  love  with 
a  man  in  the  least  unscrupulous  or  debauched,  she  would  have 
been  lost;  for  there  are  generous  natures  which  yield  them- 
selves, and  Cosette  was  one  of  them.  One  of  woman's  mag- 
nanimities is  to  yield.  Love,  at  the  height  where  it  is  abso- 
lute, is  complicated  with  some  indescribably  celestial  blind- 


ENCHANTMENTS  AND  DESOLATIONS  215 

ness  of  modesty.  But  what  dangers  you  run,  0  noble  souls ! 
Often  you  give  the  heart,  and  we  take  the  body.  Your  heart 
remains  with  you,  you  gaze  upon  it  in  the  gloom  with  a  shud- 
der. Love  has  no  middle  course;  it  either  ruins  or  it  saves. 
All  human  destiny  lies  in  this  dilemma.  This  dilemma,  ruin, 
or  safety,  is  set  forth  no  more  inexorably  by  any  fatality  than 
by  love.  Love  is  life,  if  it  is  not  death.  Cradle;  also  coffin. 
The  same  sentiment  says  "yes"  and  "no"  in  the  human  heart. 
Of  all  the  things  that  God  has  made,  the  human  heart  is  the 
one  which  sheds  the  most  light,  alas !  and  the  most  darkness. 

God  willed  that  Cosette's  love  should  encounter  one  of  the 
loves  which  save. 

Throughout  the  whole  of  the  month  of  May  of  that  year 
1832,  there  were  there,  in  every  night,  in  that  poor,  neglected 
garden,  beneath  that  thicket  which  grew  thicker  and  more 
fragrant  day  by  day,  two  beings  composed  of  all  chastity,  all 
innocence,  overflowing  with  all  the  felicity  of  heaven,  nearer 
to  the  archangels  than  to  mankind,  pure,  honest,  intoxicated, 
radiant,  who  shone  for  each  other  amid  the  shadows.  It 
seemed  to  Cosette  that  Marius  had  a  crown,  and  to  Marius  that 
Cosette  had  a  nimbus.  They  touched  each  other,  they  gazed  at 
each  other,  they  clasped  each  other's  hands,  they  pressed  close 
to  each  other;  but  there  was  a  distance  which  they  did  not 
pass.  Not  that  they  respected  it;  they  did  not  know  of  its 
existence.  Marius  was  conscious  of  a  barrier,  Cosette's  inno- 
cence; and  Cosette  of  a  support,  Marius'  loyalty.  The  first 
kiss  had  also  been  the  last.  Marius,  since  that  time,  had  not 
gone  further  than  to  touch  Cosette's  hand,  or  her  kerchief,  or 
a  lock  of  her  hair,  with  his  lips.  For  him,  Cosette  was  a  per- 
fume and  not  a  woman.  He  inhaled  her.  She  refused  noth- 
ing, and  he  asked  nothing.  Cosette  was  happy,  and  Marius 
was  satisfied.  They  lived  in  this  ecstatic  state  which  can  be 
described  as  the  dazzling  of  one  soul  by  another  soul.  It  was 
the  ineffable  first  embrace  of  two  maiden  souls  in  the  ideal. 
Two  swans  meeting  on  the  Jungfrau. 

At  that  hour  of  love,  an  hour  when  voluptuousness  is  ab- 
solutely mute,  beneath  the  omnipotence  of  ecstasy,  Marius,  the 


pure  and  seraphic  Marius,  would  rather  have  gone  to  a  woman 
of  the  town  than  have  raised  Cosette's  robe  to  the  height  of 
her  ankle.  Once,  in  the  moonlight,  Cosette  stooped  to  pick  up 
something  on  the  ground,  her  bodice  fell  apart  and  permitted 
a  glimpse  of  the  beginning  of  her  throat.  Marius  turned 
away  his  eyes. 

What  took  place  between  these  two  beings  ?  Nothing.  They- 
adored  each  other. 

At  night,  when  they  were  there,  that  garden  seemed  a  living 
and  a  sacred  spot.  All  flowers  unfolded  around  them  and  sent 
them  incense;  and  they  opened  their  souls  and  scattered 
them  over  the  flowers.  The  wanton  and  vigorous  vegetation 
quivered,  full  of  strength  and  intoxication,  around  these  two 
innocents,  and  they  uttered  words  of  love  which  set  the  trees 
to  trembling. 

What  words  were  these?  Breaths.  Nothing  more.  These 
breaths  sufficed  to  trouble  and  to  touch  all  nature  round  about. 
Magic  power  which  we  should  find  it  difficult  to  understand 
were  we  to  read  in  a  book  these  conversations  which  are  made 
to  be  borne  away  and  dispersed  like  smoke  wreaths  by  the 
breeze  beneath  the  leaves.  Take  from  those  murmurs  of  two 
lovers  that  melody  which  proceeds  from  the  soul  and  which 
accompanies  them  like  a  lyre,  and  what  remains  is  nothing 
more  than  a  shade;  you  say:  "What!  is  that  all!"  eh!  yes, 
childish  prattle,  repetitions,  laughter  at  nothing,  nonsense, 
everything  that  is  deepest  and  most  sublime  in  the  world  !  The 
only  things  which  are  worth  the  trouble  of  saying  and  hearing ! 

The  man  who  has  never  heard,  the  man  who  has  never 
uttered  these  absurdities,  these  paltry  remarks,  is  an  imbecile 
and  a  malicious  fellow.  Cosette  said  to  Marius : — 

"Dost  thou  know?—' 

[In  all  this  and  athwart  this  celestial  maidenliness,  and 
without  either  of  them  being  able  to  say  how  it  had  come 
about,  they  had  begun  to  call  each  other  thou.] 

"Dost  thou  know?    My  name  is  Euphrasie." 

"Euphrasie?    Why,  no,  thy  name  is  Cosette." 

"Oh  !  Cosette  is  a  very  ugly  name  that  was  given  to  me  when 


ENCHA\TMENT8  AND  DESOLATIONS  217 

1  was  a  little  thing.  But  my  real  name  is  Euphrasie.  Dost 
thou  like  that  name — Euphrasie?" 

"Yes.    But  Cosette  is  not  ugly." 

"Do  you  like  it  better  than  Euphrasie?" 

"Why,  yes." 

"Then  I  like  it  better  too.  Truly,  it  is  pretty,  Cosette.  Call 
me  Cosette." 

And  the  smile  that  she  added  made  of  this  dialogue  an 
idyl  worthy  of  a  grove  situated  in  heaven.  On  another  occa- 
sion she  gazed  intently  at  him  and  exclaimed: — 

"Monsieur,  you  are  handsome,  you  are  good-looking,  you 
are  witty,  you  are  not  at  all  stupid,  you  are  much  more  learned 
than  I  am,  but  I  bid  you  defiance  with  this  word :  I  love  you !" 

And  Marius,  in  the  very  heavens,  thought  he  heard  a  strain 
sung  by  a  star. 

Or  she  bestowed  on  him  a  gentle  tap  because  he  coughed, 
and  she  said  to  him : — 

"Don't  cough,  sir;  I  will  not  have  people  cough  on  my  do- 
main without  my  permission.  It's  very  naughty  to  cough  and 
to  disturb  me.  I  want  you  to  be  well,  because,  in  the  first 
place,  if  you  were  not  well,  1  should  be  very  unhappy.  What 
should  I  do  then?" 

And  this  was  simply  divine. 

Once  Marius  said  to  Cosette : — 

"Just  imagine,  I  thought  at  one  time  that  your  name  was 
Ursule." 

This  made  both  of  them  laugh  the  whole  evening. 

In  the  middle  of  another  conversation,  he  chanced  to  ex- 
claim : — 

"Oh !  One  day,  at  the  Luxembourg,  I  had  a  good  mind  to 
finish  breaking  up  a  veteran !"  But  he  stopped  short,  and 
went  no  further.  He  would  have  been  obliged  to  speak  to 
Cosette  of  her  garter,  and  that  was  impossible.  This  bordered 
on  a  strange  theme,  the  flesh,  before  which  that  immense  and 
innocent  love  recoiled  with  a  sort  of  sacred  fright. 

Marius  pictured  life  with  Cosette  to  himself  like  this,  with- 
out anything  else;  to  come  every  evening  to  the  Rue  Plumet, 


218  SAINT-DENIS 

to  displace  the  old  and  accommodating  bar  of  the  chief-jus- 
tice's gate,  to  sit  elbow  to  elbow  on  that  bench,  to  gaze  through 
the  trees  at  the  scintillation  of  the  on-coming  night,  to  fit  a 
fold  of  the  knee  of  his  trousers  into  the  ample  fall  of  Cosette's 
gown,  to  caress  her  thumb-nail,  to  call  her  tliou,  to  smell  of 
the  same  flower,  one  after  the  other,  forever,  indefinitely. 
During  this  time,  clouds  passed  above  their  heads.  Every 
time  that  the  wind  blows  it  bears  with  it  more  of  the  dreams 
of  men  than  of  the  clouds  of  heaven. 

This  chaste,  almost  shy  love  was  not  devoid  of  gallantry, 
by  any  means.  To  pay  compliments  to  the  woman  whom  a  man 
loves  is  the  first  method  of  bestowing  caresses,  and  he  is  half 
audacious  who  tries  it.  A  compliment  is  something  like  a 
kiss  through  a  veil.  Voluptuousness  mingles  there  with  its 
sweet  tiny  point,  while  it  hides  itself.  The  heart  draws  back 
before  voluptuousness  only  to  love  the  more.  Marius'  blan- 
dishments, all  saturated  with  fancy,  were,  so  to  speak,  of  azure 
hue.  The  birds  when  they  fly  up  yonder,  in  the  direction  of 
the  angels,  must  hear  such  words.  There  were  mingled  with 
them,  nevertheless,  life,  humanity,  all  the  positiveness  of  which 
Marius  was  capable.  It  was  what  is  said  in  the  bower,  a  pre- 
lude to  what  will  be  said  in  the  chamber;  a  lyrical  effusion, 
strophe  and  sonnet  intermingled,  pleasing  hyperboles  of 
cooing,  all  the  refinements  of  adoration  arranged  in  a  bouquet 
and  exhaling  a  celestial  perfume,  an  ineffable  twitter  of  heart 
to  heart. 

"Oh !"  murmured  Marius,  "how  beautiful  you  are !  I  dare 
not  look  at  you.  It  is  all  over  with  me  when  I  contemplate 
you.  You  are  a  grace.  I  know  not  what  is  the  matter  with 
me.  The  hem  of  your  gown,  when  the  tip  of  your  shoe  peeps 
from  beneath,  upsets  me.  And  then,  what  an  enchanted  gleam 
when  you  open  your  thought  even  but  a  little !  You  talk  as- 
tonishingly good  sense.  It  seems  to  me  at  times  that  you  are 
a  dream.  Speak,  I  listen,  I  admire.  Oh  Cosette!  how  strange 
it  is  and  how  charming!  I  am  really  beside  myself.  You  are 
adorable,  Mademoiselle.  I  study  your  feet  with  the  micro- 
scope and  your  soul  with  the  telescope." 


ENCHAXTMENTS  AXD  DEHOLAT10NS  219 

And  Coscttc  answered : — 

"I  have  been  loving  a  little  more  all  the  time  that  has 
passed  since  this  morning." 

Questions  and  replies  took  care  of  themselves  in  this  dia- 
logue, which  always  turned  with  mutual  consent  upon  love,  as 
the  little  pith  figures  always  turn  on  their  peg. 

Cosette's  whole  person  was  ingenuousness,  ingenuity,  trans- 
parency, whiteness,  candor,  radiance.  It  might  have  been  said 
of  Cosette  that  she  was  clear.  She  produced  on  those  who  saw 
her  the  sensation  of  April  and  dawn.  There  was  dew  in  her 
eyes.  Cosette  was  a  condensation  of  the  auroral  light  in  the 
form  of  a  woman. 

It  was  quite  simple  that  Marius  should  admire  her,  since  he 
adored  her.  But  the  truth  is,  that  this  little  school-girl,  fresh 
from  the  convent,  talked  with  exquisite  penetration  and  ut- 
tered, at  times,  all  sorts  of  true  and  delicate  sayings.  Her 
prattle  was  conversation.  She  never  made  a  mistake  about 
anything,  and  she  saw  things  justly.  The  woman  feels  and 
speaks  with  the  tender  instinct  of  the  heart,  which  is  infal- 
lible. 

No  one  understands  so  well  as  a  woman,  how  to  say  things 
that  are,  at  once,  both  sweet  and  deep.  Sweetness  and  depth, 
they  are  the  whole  of  woman;  in  them  lies  the  whole  of 
heaven. 

In  this  full  felicity,  tears  welled  up  to  their  eyes  every  in- 
stant. A  crushed  lady-bug,  a  feather  fallen  from  a  nest,  a 
branch  of  hawthorn  broken,  aroused  their  pity,  and  their 
ecstasy,  sweetly  mingled  with  melancholy,  seemed  to  ask 
nothing  better  than  to  weep.  The  most  sovereign  symptom  of 
love  is  a  tenderness  that  is,  at  times,  almost  unbearable. 

And,  in  addition  to  this, — all  these  contradictions  are  the 
lightning  play  of  love, — they  were  fond  of  laughing,  they 
laughed  readily  and  with  a  delicious  freedom,  and  so  fa- 
miliarly that  they  sometimes  presented  the  air  of  two  boys. 

Still,  though  unknown  to  hearts  intoxicated  with  purity, 
nature  is  always  present  and  will  not  be  forgotten.  She  is 
there  with  her  brutal  and  sublime  object ;  and  however  great 


990  BAINT-DEXIH 

may  be  the  innocence  of  souls,  one  feels  in  the  most  modest 
private  interview,  the  adorable  and  mysterious  shade  which 
separates  a  couple  of  lovers  from  a  pair  of  friends. 

They  idolized  each  other. 

The  permanent  and  the  immutable  are  persistent.  People 
live,  they  smile,  they  laugh,  they  make  little  grimaces  with 
the  tips  of  their  lips,  they  interlace  their  fingers,  they  call  each 
other  thou,  and  that  does  not  prevent  eternity. 

Two  lovers  hide  themselves  in  the  evening,  in  the  twilight, 
in  the  invisible,  with  the  birds,  with  the  roses;  they  fascinate 
each  other  in  the  darkness  with  their  hearts  which  they  throw 
into  their  eyes,  they  murmur,  they  whisper,  and  in  the  mean- 
time, immense  librations  of  the  planets  fill  the  infinite  uni- 
verse. 

CHAPTER    II 

THE  BEWILDERMENT  OF  PERFECT  HAPPINESS 

THEY  existed  vaguely,  frightened  at  their  happiness.  They 
did  not  notice  the  cholera  which  decimated  Paris  precisely 
during  that  very  month.  They  had  confided  in  each  other  as 
far  as  possible,  but  this  had  not  extended  much  further  than 
their  names.  Marius  had  told  Cosette  that  he  was  an  orphan, 
that  his  name  was  Marius  Pontmercy,  that  he  was  a  lawyer, 
that  he  lived  by  writing  things  for  publishers,  that  his  father 
had  been  a  colonel,  that  the  latter  had  been  a  hero,  and  that 
he,  Marius,  was  on  bad  terms  with  his  grandfather  who  was 
rich.  He  had  also  hinted  at  being  a  baron,  but  this  had  pro- 
duced no  effect  on  Cosette.  She  did  not  know  the  meaning 
of  the  word.  Marius  was  Marius.  On  her  side,  she  had  con- 
fided to  him  that  she  had  been  brought  up  at  the  Petit-Picpus 
convent,  that  her  mother,  like  his  own,  was  dead,  that  her 
father's  name  was  M.  Fauchelevent,  that  he  was  very  good, 
that  he  gave  a  great  deal  to  the  poor,  but  that  he  was  poor  him- 
self, and  that  he  denied  himself  everything  though  he  denied 
her  nothing. 


ENCHANTMENTS  AND  'DESOLATfaJiS  221 

Strange  to  say,  in  the  sort  of  symphony  which  Marius  had 
lived  since  he  had  been  in  the  habit  of  seeing  Cosette,  the 
past,  even  the  most  recent  past,  had  become  so  confused  and 
distant  to  him,  that  what  Cosette  told  him  satisfied  him  com- 
pletely. It  did  not  even  occur  to  him  to  tell  her  about  the 
nocturnal  adventure  in  the  hovel,  about  Thenardier,  about  the 
burn,  and  about  the  strange  attitude  and  singular  flight  of  her 
father.  Marius  had  momentarily  forgotten  all  this;  in  the 
evening  he  did  not  even  know  that  there  had  been  a  morning, 
what  he  had  done,  where  he  had  breakfasted,  nor  who  had 
spoken  to  him ;  he  had  songs  in  his  ears  which  rendered  him 
deaf  to  every  other  thought ;  he  only  existed  at  the  hours  when 
he  saw  Cosette.  Then,  as  he  was  in  heaven,  it  was  quite  nat- 
ural that  he  should  forget  earth.  Both  bore  languidly  the  in- 
definable burden  of  immaterial  pleasures.  Thus  lived  these 
somnambulists  who  are  called  lovers. 

Alas !  Who  is  there  who  has  not  felt  all  these  things  ?  Why 
does  there  come  an  hour  when  one  emerges  from  this  azure, 
and  why  does  life  go  on  afterwards? 

Loving  almost  takes  the  place  of  thinking.  Love  is  an 
ardent  forgetfulness  of  all  the  rest.  Then  ask  logic  of  passion 
if  you  will.  There  is  no  more  absolute  logical  sequence  in  the 
human  heart  than  there  is  a  perfect  geometrical  figure  in  the 
celestial  mechanism.  For  Cosette  and  Marius  nothing  ex- 
isted except  Marius  and  Cosette.  The  universe  around  them 
had  fallen  into  a  hole.  They  lived  in  a  golden  minute.  There 
was  nothing  before  them,  nothing  behind.  It  hardly  occurred 
to  Marius  that  Cosette  had  a  father.  His  brain  was  dazzled 
and  obliterated.  Of  what  did  these  lovers  talk  then?  We 
have  seen,  of  the  flowers,  and  the  swallows,  the  setting  sun  and 
the  rising  moon,  and  all  sorts  of  important  things.  They  had 
told  each  other  everything  except  everything.  The  everything 
of  lovers  is  nothing.  But  the  father,  the  realities,  that  lair,  the 
ruffians,  that  adventure,  to  what  purpose?  And  was  he  very 
sure  that  this  nightmare  had  actually  existed?  They  were 
two,  and  they  adored  each  other,  and  beyond  that  there  was 
nothing.  Nothing  else  existed.  It  is  probable  that  this  van- 


222  SAINT-DENIS 

ishing  of  hell  in  our  rear  is  inherent  to  the  arrival  of  para- 
dise. Have  we  beheld  demons?  Are  there  any?  Have  we 
trembled  ?  Have  we  suffered  ?  We  no  longer  know.  A  rosy 
cloud  hangs  over  it. 

So  these  two  beings  lived  in  this  manner,  high  aloft,  with 
all  that  improbability  which  is  in  nature;  neither  at  the  nadir 
nor  at  the  zenith,  between  man  and  seraphim,  above  the  mire, 
below  the  ether,  in  the  clouds ;  hardly  flesh  and  blood,  soul  and 
ecstasy  from  head  to  foot;  already  too  sublime  to  walk  the 
earth,  still  too  heavily  charged  with  humanity  to  disappear  in 
the  blue,  suspended  like  atoms  which  are  waiting  to  be  pre- 
cipitated; apparently  beyond  the  bounds  of  destiny;  ignorant 
of  that  rut;  yesterday,  to-day,  to-morrow;  amazed,  rapturous, 
floating,  soaring;  at  times  so  light  that  they  could  take  their 
flight  out  into  the  infinite ;  almost  prepared  to  soar  away  to  all 
eternity.  They  slept  wide-awake,  thus  sweetly  lulled.  Oh ! 
splendid  lethargy  of  the  real  overwhelmed  by  the  ideal. 

Sometimes,  beautiful  as  Cosette  was,  Marius  shut  his  eyes  in 
her  presence.  The  best  way  to  look  at  the  soul  is  through 
closed  eyes. 

Marius  and  Cosette  never  asked  themselves  whither  this  was 
to  lead  them.  They  considered  that  they  had  already  arrived. 
It  is  a  strange  claim  on  man's  part  to  wish  that  love  should 
lead  to  something. 


CHAPTER   III 

THE  BEGINNING  OF  SHADOW 

JEAN  VALJEAN  suspected  nothing. 

Cosette,  who  was  rather  less  dreamy  than  Marius,  was  gay, 
and  that  sufficed  for  Jean  Valjean's  happiness.  The  thoughts 
which  Cosette  cherished,  her  tender  preoccupations,  Marius' 
image  which  filled  her  heart,  took  away  nothing  from  the  in- 
comparable purity  of  her  beautiful,  chaste,  and  smiling  brow. 
She  was  at  the  age  when  the  virgin  bears  her  love  as  the  angel 


ENCHANTMENTS  AND  DESOLATIONS  223 

his  lily.  So  Jean  Valjcan  was  at  case.  And  then,  when  two 
lovers  have  come  to  an  understanding,  things  always  go  well ; 
the  third  party  who  might  disturh  their  love  is  kept  in  a  stab: 
of  perfect  blindness  by  a  restricted  number  of  precautions 
which  are  always  the  same  in  the  case  of  all  lovers.  Thus,  Co- 
sette  never  objected  to  any  of  Jean  Valjean's  proposals.  Did 
she  want  to  take  a  walk?  "Yes,  dear  little  father."  Did  she 
want  to  stay  at  home?  Very  good.  Did  he  wish  to  pass  the 
evening  with  Cosette  ?  She  was  delighted.  As  he  always  went 
to  bed  at  ten  o'clock,  Marius  did  not  come  to  the  garden  on 
such  occasions  until  after  that  hour,  when,  from  the  street, 
he  heard  Cosette  open  the  long  glass  door  on  the  veranda.  Of 
course,  no  one  ever  met  Marius  in  the  daytime.  Jean  Valjean 
never  even  dreamed  any  longer  that  Marius  was  in  existence. 
Only  once,  one  morning,  he  chanced  to  say  to  Cosette :  "Why, 
you  have  whitewash  on  your  back !"  On  the  previous  evening, 
Marius,  in  a  transport,  had  pushed  Cosette  against  the 
wall. 

Old  Toussaint,  who  retired  early,  thought  of  nothing  but 
her  sleep,  and  was  as  ignorant  of  the  whole  matter  as  Jean 
Valjean. 

Marius  never  set  foot  in  the  house.  When  he  was  with 
Cosette,  they  hid  themselves  in  a  recess  near  the  steps,  in  order 
that  they  might  neither  be  seen  nor  heard  from  the  street,  and 
there  they  sat,  frequently  contenting  themselves,  by  way  of 
conversation,  with  pressing  each  other's  hands  twenty  times  a 
minute  as  they  gazed  at  the  branches  of  the  trees.  At  such 
times,  a  thunderbolt  might  have  fallen  thirty  paces  from  them, 
and  they  would  not  have  noticed  it,  so  deeply  was  the  revery  of 
the  one  absorbed  and  sunk  in  the  revery  of  the  other. 

Limpid  purity.  Hours  wholly  white;  almost  all  alike.  This 
sort  of  love  is  a  recollection  of  lily  petals  and  the  plumage  of 
the  dove. 

The  whole  extent  of  the  garden  lay  between  them  and  the 
street.  Every  time  that  Marius  entered  and  left,  he  carefully 
adjusted  the  bar  of  the  gate  in  such  a  manner  that  no  dis- 
placement was  visible. 


224  SAINT-DENIS 

He  usually  went  away  about  midnight,  and  returned  to 
Courfeyrac's  lodgings.  Courfeyrac  said  to  Bahorel : — 

"Would  you  believe  it?  Marius  comes  home  nowadays  at 
one  o'clock  in  the  morning." 

Bahorel  replied : — 

"What  do  you  expect?  There's  always  a  petard  in  a  semi- 
nary fellow." 

At  times,  Courfeyrac  folded  his  arms,  assumed  a  serious  air, 
and  said  to  Marius : — 

"You  are  getting  irregular  in  your  habits,  young  man." 

Courfeyrac,  being  a  practical  man,  did  not  take  in  good  part 
this  reflection  of  an  invisible  paradise  upon  Marius;  he  was 
not  much  in  the  habit  of  concealed  passions ;  it  made  him  im- 
patient, and  now  and  then  he  called  upon  Marius  to  come  back 
to  reality. 

One  morning,  he  threw  him  this  admonition : — 

"My  dear  fellow,  you  produce  upon  me  the  effect  of  being 
located  in  the  moon,  the  realm  of  dreams,  the  province  of  illu- 
sions, capital,  soap-bubble.  Come,  be  a  good  boy,  what's  her 
name  ?" 

But  nothing  could  induce  Marius  "to  talk."  They  might 
have  torn  out  his  nails  before  one  of  the  two  sacred  syllables 
of  which  that  ineffable  name,  Cosette,  was  composed.  True 
love  is  as  luminous  as  the  dawn,  and  as  silent  as  the  tomb. 
Only,  Courfeyrac  saw  this  change  in  Marius,  that  his  tacitur- 
nity was  of  the  beaming  order. 

During  this  sweet  month  of  May,  Marius  and  Cosette 
learned  to  know  these  immense  delights.  To  dispute  and  to 
say  you  for  thou,  simply  that  they  might  say  thou  the  better 
afterwards.  To  talk  at  great  length  with  very  minute  details, 
of  persons  in  whom  they  took  not  the  slightest  interest  in  the 
world ;  another  proof  that  in  that  ravishing  opera  called  love, 
the  libretto  counts  for  almost  nothing; 

For  Marius,  to  listen  to  Cosette  discussing  finery; 

For  Cosette,  to  listen  to  Marius  talk  in  politics ; 

To  listen,  knee  pressed  to  knee,  to  the  carriages  rolling  along 
the  Rue  de  Babylone ; 


ENCHANTMENTS  AND  DESOLATIONS  225 

To  gaze  upon  the  same  planet  in  space,  or  at  the  same  glow- 
worm gleaming  in  the  grass; 

To  hold  their  peace  together;  a  still  greater  delight  than 
conversation ; 

Etc.,  etc. 

In  the  meantime,  divers  complications  were  approaching. 

One  evening,  Marius  was  on  his  way  to  the  rendezvous,  by 
way  of  the  Boulevard  des  Invalides.  He  habitually  walked 
with  drooping  head.  As  he  was  on  the  point  of  turning  the 
corner  of  the  Eue  Plumet,  he  heard  some  one  quite  close  to 
him  say: — 

"Good  evening,  Monsieur  Marius." 

He  raised  his  head  and  recognized  fiponine. 

This  produced  a  singular  effect  upon  him.  He  had  not 
thought  of  that  girl  a  single  time  since  the  day  when  she  had 
conducted  him  to  the  Rue  Plumet,  he  had  not  seen  her  again, 
and  she  had  gone  completely  out  of  his  mind.  He  had  no 
reasons  for  anything  but  gratitude  towards  her,  he  owed  her 
his  happiness,  and  yet,  it  was  embarrassing  to  him  to  meet  her. 

It  is  an  error  to  think  that  passion,  when  it  is  pure  and 
happy,  leads  man  to  a  state  of  perfection ;  it  simply  leads  him, 
as  we  have  noted,  to  a  state  of  oblivion.  In  this  situation,  man 
forgets  to  be  bad,  but  he  also  forgets  to  be  good.  Gratitude, 
duty,  matters  essential  and  important  to  be  remembered,  van- 
ish. At  any  other  time,  Marius  would  have  behaved  quite  dif- 
ferently to  fiponine.  Absorbed  in  Cosette,  he  had  not  even 
clearly  put  it  to  himself  that  thisfiponine  was  named  Eponine 
Thenardier,  and  that  she  bore  the  name  inscribed  in  his 
father's  will,  that  name,  for  which,  but  a  few  months  before, 
he  would  have  so  ardently  sacrificed  himself.  We  show  Marius 
as  he  was.  His  father  himself  was  fading  out  of  his  soul  to 
some  extent,  under  the  splendor  of  his  love. 

He  replied  with  some  embarrassment: — 

"Ah  !  so  it's  you,  fiponine?" 

"Why  do  you  call  me  you?    Have  I  done  anything  to  you?" 

"No,"  he  answered. 

Certainly,  he  had  nothing  against  her.     Far  from  it.    Only, 


926  8AI  XT-DENIS 

he  felt  that  he  could  not  do  otherwise,  now  that  he  used  thou 

to  Cosette,  than  say  you  to  fiponine. 
As  he  remained  silent,  she  exclaimed: — 
''Say- 
Then  she  paused.     It  seemed  as  though  words  failed  that 

creature  formerly  so  heedless  and  so  bold.    She  tried  to  smile 

and  could  not.    Then  she  resumed : — 
"Well  ?" 

Then  she  paused  again,  and  remained  with  downcast  eyes. 
"Good    evening,    Mr.    Marius,"    said    she    suddenly    and 

abruptly;  and  away  she  went. 


CHAPTER    IV 

A  CAB  RUNS  IN  ENGLISH  AND  BARKS  IN  SLANO 

THE  following  day  was  the  3d  of  June,  1832.  a  date  which 
it  is  necessary  to  indicate  on  account  of  the  grave  events  which 
at  that  epoch  hung  on  the  horizon  of  Paris  in  the  state  of 
lightning-charged  clouds.  Marius,  at  nightfall,  was  pursuing 
the  same  road  as  on  the  preceding  evening,  with  the  same 
thoughts  of  delight  in  his  heart,  when  he  caught  sight  of 
fiponine  approaching,  through  the  trees  of  the  boulevard. 
Two  days  in  succession — this  was  too  much.  He  turned 
hastily  aside,  quitted  the  boulevard,  changed  his  course  and 
went  to  the  Rue  Plumet  through  the  Rue  Monsieur. 

This  caused  fiponinc  to  follow  him  to  the  Rue  Plumet,  a 
tiling  which  she  had  not  yet  done.  Up  to  that  time,  she  had 
contented  herself  with  watching  him  on  his  passage  along  the 
boulevard  without  ever  seeking  to  encounter  him.  It  was  only 
on  the  evening  before  that  she  had  attempted  to  address  him. 

So  fiponinc  followed  him,  without  his  suspecting  the  fact. 
She  saw  him  displace  the  bar  and  slip  into  the  garden. 

She  approached  the  railing,  felt  of  the  bars  one  after  the 
other,  and  readily  recognized  the  one  which  Marius  had 
moved. 


ENCI1ANTMENTU  AND  DESOLATIONS  227 

She  murmured  in  a  low  voice  and  in  gloomy  accents : — 

"None  of  that,  Lisette !" 

She  seated  herself  on  the  underpinning  of  the  railing,  close 
beside  the  bar,  as  though  she  were  guarding  it.  It  was  pre- 
cisely at  the  point  where  the  railing  touched  the  neighboring 
wall.  There  was  a  dim  nook  there,  in  which  fiponine  was 
entirely  concealed. 

She  remained  thus  for  more  than  an  hour,  without  stirring 
and  without  breathing,  a  prey  to  her  thoughts. 

Towards  ten  o'clock  in  the  evening,  one  of  the  two  or  three 
persons  who  passed  through  the  Rue  Plumet,  an  old,  belated 
bourgeois  who  was  making  haste  to  escape  from  this  deserted 
spot  of  evil  repute,  as  he  skirted  the  garden  railings  and 
reached  the  angle  which  it  made  with  the  wall,  heard  a  dull 
and  threatening  voice  saying: — 

"I'm  no  longer  surprised  that  he  comes  here  every  evening." 

The  passer-by  cast  a  glance  around  him,  saw  no  one,  dared 
not  peer  into  the  black  niche,  and  was  greatly  alarmed.  He 
redoubled  his  pace. 

This  passer-by  had  reason  to  make  haste,  for  a  very  few 
instants  later,  six  men,  who  were  marching  separately  and  at 
some  distance  from  each  other,  along  the  wall,  and  who  might 
have  been  taken  for  a  gray  patrol,  entered  the  Rue  Plumet. 

The  first  to  arrive  at  the  garden  railing  halted,  and  waited 
for  the  others ;  a  second  later,  all  six  were  reunited. 

These  men  began  to  talk  in  a  low  voice. 

"This  is  the  place."  said  one  of  them. 

"Is  there  a  cab  [dog]  in  the  garden?"  asked  another. 

"I  don't  know.  In  any  case,  I  have  fetched  a  ball  that 
we'll  make  him  eat." 

"Have  you  some  putty  to  break  the  pane  with  ?" 

"Yes." ' 

"The  railing  is  old,"  interpolated  a  fifth,  who  had  the  voice 
of  a  ventriloquist. 

"So  much  the  better."  said  the  second  who  had  spoken. 
"It  won't  screech  under  the  saw,  and  it  won't  be  hard  to 
cut." 


SAINT-DENIS 

The  sixth,  who  had  not  yet  opened  his  lips,  now  began  to 
inspect  the  gate,  as  fiponine  had  done  an  hour  earlier,  grasp- 
ing each  bar  in  succession,  and  shaking  them  cautiously. 

Thus  he  came  to  the  bar  which  Marius  had  loosened.  As  he 
was  on  the  point  of  grasping  this  bar,  a  hand  emerged  abruptly 
from  the  darkness,  fell  upon  his  arm ;  he  felt  himself  vigor- 
ously thrust  aside  by  a  push  in  the  middle  of  his  breast,  and 
a  hoarse  voice  said  to  him,  but  not  loudly : — 

"There's  a  dog." 

At  the  same  moment,  he  perceived  a  pale  girl  standing 
before  him. 

The  man  underwent  that  shock  which  the  unexpected  always 
brings.  He  bristled  up  in  hideous  wise ;  nothing  is  so  formid- 
able to  behold  as  ferocious  beasts  who  are  uneasy;  their 
terrified  air  evokes  terror. 

He  recoiled  and  stammered: — 

"What  jade  is  this  ?" 

"Your  daughter." 

It  was,  in  fact,  fiponine.  who  had  addressed  Thenardier. 

At  the  apparition  of  fiponine,  the  other  five,  that  is  to  say, 
Claquesous,  Guelemer,  Babet,  Brujon,  and  Montparnasse  had 
noiselessly  drawn  near,  without  precipitation,  without  utter- 
ing a  word,  with  the  sinister  slowness  peculiar  to  these  men 
of  the  night. 

Some  indescribable  but  hideous  tools  were  visible  in  their 
hands.  Guelemer  held  one  of  those  pairs  of  curved  pincers 
which  prowlers  call  f auctions. 

"Ah,  see  here,  what  are  you  about  there?  What  do  you 
want  with  us?  Are  you  crazy?"  exclaimed  Thenardier.  as 
loudly  as  one  can  exclaim  and  still  speak  low ;  "what  have  you 
come  here  to  hinder  our  work  for?" 

fiponine  burst  out  laughing,  and  threw  herself  on  his 
neck. 

"I  am  here,  little  father,  because  I  am  here.  Isn't  a  person 
allowed  to  sit  on  the  stones  nowadays?  It's  you  who  ought 
not  to  be  here.  What  have  you  come  here  for,  since  it's  a 
biscuit  ?  I  told  Magnon  so.  There's  nothing  to  be  done  here. 


ENCHANTMENTS  AND  DESOLATIONS  229 

But  embrace  me,  my  good  little  father !  It's  a  long  time  since 
I've  seen  you  !  So  you're  out  ?" 

Thenardier  tried  to  disentangle  himself  from  fiponine's 
arms,  and  grumbled : — 

"That's  good.  You've  embraced  me.  Yes,  I'm  out.  I'm 
not  in.  Now,  get  away  with  you." 

But  fiponine  did  not  release  her  hold,  and  redoubled  her 
caresses. 

"But  how  did  you  manage  it,  little  pa?  You  must  have 
been  very  clever  to  get  out  of  that.  Tell  me  about  it !  And 
my  mother?  Where  is  mother?  Tell  me  about  mamma." 

Thenardier  replied : — 

"She's  well.  I  don't  know,  let  me  alone,  and  be  off,  I  tell 
you." 

"I  won't  go,  so  there  now,"  pouted  fiponine  like  a  spoiled 
child ;  "you  send  me  off,  and  it's  four  months  since  I  saw  you, 
and  I've  hardly  had  time  to  kiss  you." 

And  she  caught  her  father  round  the  neck  again. 

"Come,  now,  this  is  stupid !"  said  Babet. 

"Make  haste!"  said  Guelemer,  "the  cops  may  pass." 

The  ventriloquist's  voice  repeated  his  distich: — 

"Nous  n'  sommes  pas  le  jour  de  Tan,        "This  isn't  New  Year's  day 
A  be"eoter  papa,  niaman."  To  peck  at  pa  and  ma." 

fiponine  turned  to  the  five  ruffians. 

"Why,  it's  Monsieur  Brujon.  Good  day,  Monsieur  Babet. 
Good  day,  Monsieur  Claquesous.  Don't  you  know  me,  Mon- 
sieur Guelemer?  How  goes  it,  Montparnasse ?" 

"Yes,  they  know  you !"  ejaculated  Thenardier.  "But  good 
day,  good  evening,  sheer  off !  leave  us  alone !" 

"It's  the  hour  for  foxes,  not  for  chickens,"  said  Mont- 
parnasse. 

"You  see  the  job  we  have  on  hand  here,"  added  Babet. 

fiponine  caught  Montparnasse's  hand. 

"Take  care,"  said  he,  "you'll  cut  yourself,  I've  a  knife 
open." 

"My  little  Montparnasse,"  responded  Eponine  very  gently, 


230  SAMT-DEJflB 

"you  must  have  confidence  in  people.  I  am  the  daughter  of 
my  father,  perhaps.  Monsieur  Babet,  Monsieur  Guelemer, 
I'm  the  person  who  was  charged  to  investigate  this  matter." 

It  is  remarkable  that  fiponine  did  not  talk  slang.  That 
frightful  tongue  had  become  impossible  to  her  since  she  had 
known  Marius. 

She  pressed  in  her  hand,  small,  bony,  and  feeble  as  that  of  a 
skeleton,  Guelemer's  huge,  coarse  fingers,  and  continued : — 

"You  know  well  that  I'm  no  fool.  Ordinarily,  I  am  be- 
lieved. I  have  rendered  you  service  on  various  occasions. 
Well,  I  have  made  inquiries ;  you  will  expose  yourselves  to  no 
purpose,  you  see.  I  swear  to  you  that  there  is  nothing  in 
this  house." 

"There  are  lone  women,"  said  Guelemer. 

"No,  the  persons  have  moved  away." 

"The  candles  haven't,  anyway !"  ejaculated  Babet. 

And  he  pointed  out  to  Sponine,  across  the  tops  of  the  trees, 
a  light  which  was  wandering  about  in  the  mansard  roof  of  the 
pavilion.  It  was  Toussaint,  who  had  stayed  up  to  spread  out 
some  linen  to  dry. 

fiponine  made  a  final  effort. 

"Well,"  said  she,  "they're  very  poor  folks,  and  it's  a  hovel 
where  there  isn't  a  sou." 

"Go  to  the  devil !"  cried  Thenardier.  "When  we've  turned 
the  house  upside  down  and  put  the  cellar  at  the  top  and  the 
attic  below,  we'll  tell  you  what  there  is  inside,  and  whether  it's 
francs  or  sous  or  half-farthings." 

And  he  pushed  her  aside  with  the  intention  of  entering. 

"My  good  friend,  Mr.  Montparnasse,"  said  fiponine,  "I 
entreat  you.  you  are  a  good  fellow,  don't  enter." 

"Take  care,  you'll  cut  yourself,"  replied  Montparnasse. 

Thenardier  resumed  in  his  decided  tone : — 

"Decamp,  my  girl,  and  leave  men  to  their  own  affairs !" 

Eponine  released  Montparnasse's  hand,  which  she  had 
grasped  again,  and  said  : — 

"So  you  mean  to  enter  this  house?" 

"Rather !"  grinned  the  ventriloquist. 


' 


SHE    SET     HER     BACK     AGAINST     THE     GATE     AND     FACED     THE     RUFFIAN^ 


ENCHANTMENTS  AND  DESOLATIONS 

Then  she  set  her  back  against  the  gate,  faced  the  six  ruffians 
who  were  armed  to  the  teeth,  and  to  whom  the  night  lent  the 
visages  of  demons,  and  said  in  a  firm,  low  voice : — 

"Well,  I  don't  mean  that  you  shall." 

They  halted  in  amazement.  The  ventriloquist,  however, 
finished  his  grin.  She  went  on: — 

"Friends !  Listen  well.  This  is  not  what  you  want.  Now 
I'm  talking.  In  the  first  place,  if  you  enter  this  garden,  if  you 
lay  a  hand  on  this  gate,  I'll  scream,  I'll  beat  on  the  door,  I'll 
rouse  everybody,  I'll  have  the  whole  six  of  you  seized,  I'll  call 
the  police." 

"She'd  do  it,  too,"  said  Thenardier  in  a  low  tone  to  Brujon 
and  the  ventriloquist. 

She  shook  her  head  and  added  : — 

"Beginning  with  my  father !" 

Thenardier  stepped  nearer. 

"Not  so  close,  my  good  man !"  said  she. 

He  retreated,  growling  between  his  teeth: — 

"Why,  what's  the  matter  with  her?" 

And  he  added: — 

"Bitch !" 

She  began  to  laugh  in  a  terrible  way: — 

"As  you  like,  but  you  shall  not  enter  here.  I'm  not  the 
daughter  of  a  dog,  since  I'm  the  daughter  of  a  wolf.  There 
are  six  of  you,  what  matters  that  to  me  ?  You  are  men.  Well, 
I'm  a  woman.  You  don't  frighten  me.  I  tell  you  that  you 
shan't  enter  this  house,  because  it  doesn't  suit  me.  If  you 
approach,  I'll  bark.  I  told  you,  I'm  the  dog,  and  I  don't  care 
a  straw  for  you.  Go  your  way,  you  bore  me !  Go  whore  you 
please,  but  don't  come  here,  I  forbid  it !  You  can  use  your 
knives.  I'll  use  kicks;  it's  all  the  same  to  me,  come'on!" 

She  advanced  a  pace  nearer  the  ruffians,  she  was  terrible, 
she  burst  out  laughing: — 

"Pardine  !  I'm  not  afraid.  I  shall  be  hungry  this  summer, 
and  I  shall  be  cold  this  winter.  Aren't  they  ridiculous,  these 
ninnies  of  men,  to  think  they  can  scare  a  girl !  What !  Scare  ? 
Oh,  yes,  much !  Because  you  have  finical  poppets  of  mistresses 


232  SAINT-DEMS 

who  hide  under  the  bed  when  you  put  on  a  big  voice,  forsooth ! 
I  ain't  afraid  of  anything,  that  I  ain't !" 

She  fastened  her  intent  gaze  upon  Thenardier  and  said : — 

"Not  even  of  you,  father !" 

Then  she  continued,  as  she  cast  her  blood-shot,  spectre-like" 
eyes  upon  the  ruffians  in  turn : — 

"What  do  I  care  if  I'm  picked  up  to-morrow  morning  on 
the  pavement  of  the  Rue  Plumet.  killed  by  the  blows  of  my 
father's  club,  or  whether  I'm  found  a  year  from  now  in  th«T 
nets  at  Saint-Cloud  or  the  Isle  of  Swans  in  the  midst  of  rotte* 
old  corks  and  drowned  dogs?" 

She  was  forced  to  pause ;  she  was  seized  by  a  dry  cough,  he0 
breath  came  from  her  weak  and  narrow  chest  like  the  death- 
rattle. 

She  resumed : — 

"I  have  only  to  cry  out,  and  people  will  come,  and  then  slap, 
bang !  There  are  six  of  you  ;  I  represent  the  whole  world." 

Thenardier  made  a  movement  towards  her. 

"Don't  approach !"  she  cried. 

He  halted,  and  said  gently: — 

"Well,  no;  I  won't  approach,  but  don't  speak  so  loud.  So 
you  intend  to  hinder  us  in  our  work,  my  daughter?  But  we 
must  earn  our  living  all  the  same.  Have  you  no  longer  any 
kind  feeling  for  your  father?" 

"You  bother  me,"  said  fiponine. 

"But  we  must  live,  we  must  eat — " 

"Burst !" 

So  saying,  she  seated  herself  on  the  underpinning  of  the 
fence  and  hummed: — 

"Mon  bras  si  dodu,  "My  arm  so  plump, 

Ma  jambe  bien  faite  My  lep  well  formed, 

Et  le  temps  perdu."  And  time  wasted." 

She  had  set  her  elbow  on  her  knee  and  her  chin  in  her  hand, 
and  she  swung  her  foot  with  an  air  of  indifference.  Her  tat- 
tered gown  permitted  a  view  of  her  thin  shoulder-blades.  The 
neighboring  street  lantern  illuminated  her  profile  and  her 


ENCHANTMENTS  AND  DESOLATIONS  233 

attitude.  Nothing  more  resolute  and  more  surprising  could 
be  seen. 

The  six  rascals,  speechless  and  gloomy  at  being  held  in 
?heck  by  a  girl,  retreated  beneath  the  shadow  cast  by  the 
antern,  and  held  counsel  with  furious  and  humiliated  shrugs. 

In  the  meantime  she  stared  at  them  with  a  stern  but  peace- 
ful air. 

"There's  something  the  matter  with  her,"  said  Babet.    "A 

•eason.     Is  she  in  love  with  the  dog?     It's  a  shame  to  miss 

his,  anyway.     Two  women,  an  old  fellow  who  lodges  in  the 

ick-yard,  and  curtains  that  ain't  so  bad  at  the  windows.    The 

Id  cove  must  be  a  Jew.    I  think  the  job's  a  good  one." 

"Well,  go  in,  then,  the  rest  of  you,"  exclaimed  Montpar- 
nasse.  "Do  the  job.  I'll  stay  here  with  the  girl,  and  if  she 
fails  us- 
He  flashed  the  knife,  which  he  held  open  in  his  hand,  in 
the  light  of  the  lantern. 

Thenardier  said  not  a  word,  and  seemed  ready  for  what- 
ever the  rest  pleased. 

Brujon,  who  was  somewhat  of  an  oracle,  and  who  had,  as 
the  reader  knows,  "put  up  the  job,"  had  not  as  yet  spoken. 
He  seemed  thoughtful.  He  had  the  reputation  of  not  sticking 
at  anything,  and  it  was  known  that  he  had  plundered  a  police 
post  simply  out  of  bravado.  Besides  this  he  made  verses  and 
songs,  which  gave  him  great  authority. 

Babet  interrogated  him : — 

"You  say  nothing,  Brujon?" 

Brujon  remained  silent  an  instant  longer,  then  he  shook  his 
head  in  various  ways,  and  finally  concluded  to  speak : — 

"See  here;  this  morning  I  came  across  two  sparrows  fight- 
ing, this  evening  I  jostled  a  woman  who  was  quarrelling.  All 
that's  bad.  Let's  quit." 

They  went  away. 

As  they  went,  Montparnasse  muttered: — 

"Never  mind !  if  they  had  wanted,  I'd  have  cut  her  throat." 

Babet  responded : — 

"I  wouldn't.    I  don't  hit  a  lady." 


234  8A1XT-DEXI8 

At  the  corner  of  the  street  they  halted  and  exchanged  the 
following  enigmatical  dialogue  in  a  low  tone: — 

"Where  shall  we  go  to  sleep  to-night?" 

"Under  Pantin  [Paris]." 

"Have  you  the  key  to  the  gate,  Thenardier?" 

"Pardi." 

fiponine,  who  never  took  her  eyes  off  of  them,  saw  them 
retreat  by  the  road  by  which  they  had  come.  She  rose  and 
began  to  creep  after  them  along  the  walls  and  the  houses.  She 
followed  them  thus  as  far  as  the  boulevard. 

There  they  parted,  and  she  saw  these  six  men  plunge  into 
the  gloom,  where  they  appeared  to  melt  away. 


CHAPTER   V 

THINGS  OF  THE  NIGHT 

AFTER  the  departure  of  the  ruffians,  the  Rue  Plumet 
resumed  its  tranquil,  nocturnal  aspect.  That  which  had  just 
taken  place  in  this  street  would  not  have  astonished  a  forest. 
The  lofty  trees,  the  copses,  the  heaths,  the  branches  rudely 
interlaced,  the  tall  grass,  exist  in  a  sombre  manner;  the 
savage  swarming  there  catches  glimpses  of  sudden  apparitions 
of  the  invisible;  that  which  is  below  man  distinguishes, 
through  the  mists,  that  which  is  beyond  man ;  and  the  things 
of  which  we  living  beings  are  ignorant  there  meet  face  to 
face  in  the  night.  Nature,  bristling  and  wild,  takes  alarm  at 
certain  approaches  in  which  she  fancies  that  she  feels  the 
supernatural.  The  forces  of  the  gloom  know  each  other,  and 
are  strangely  balanced  by  each  other.  Teeth  and  claws  fear 
what  they  cannot  grasp.  Blood-drinking  bestiality,  voracious 
appetites,  hunger  in  search  of  prey,  the  armed  in>tincts  of 
nails  and  jaws  which  have  for  source  and  aim  the  belly,  glare 
and  smell  out  uneasily  the  impassive  spectral  forms  straying 
beneath  a  shroud,  erect  in  its  vague  and  shuddering  robe,  and 
which  seem  to  them  to  live  with  a  dead  and  terrible  life. 


ENCHANTMENTS  AND  DESOLATIONS  2?>5 

These  brutalities,  which  are  only  matter,  entertain  a  confused 
fear  of  having  to  deal  with  the  immense  obscurity  condensed 
into  an  unknown  being.  A  black  figure  barring  the  way  stops 
the  wild  beast  short.  That  which  emerges  from  the  cemetery 
intimidates  and  disconcerts  that  which  emerges  from  the  cave ; 
the  ferocious  fear  the  sinister;  wolves  recoil  when  they 
encounter  a  ghoul. 

CHAPTER   VI 

MARIUS   BECOMES   PRACTICAL  ONCE   MORE   TO   THE  EXTENT  OP 
GIVING   COSETTE    HIS   ADDRESS 

WHILE  this  sort  of  a  dog  with  a  human  face  was  mounting 
guard  over  the  gate,  and  while  the  six  ruffians  were  yielding 
to  a  girl,  Marius  was  by  Cosette's  side. 

Never  had  the  sky  been  more  studded  with  stars  and  more 
charming,  the  trees  more  trembling,  the  odor  of  the  grass  more 
penetrating;  never  had  the  birds  fallen  asleep  among  the 
leaves  with  a  sweeter  noise ;  never  had  all  the  harmonies  of 
universal  serenity  responded  more  thoroughly  to  the  inward 
music  of  love;  never  had  Marius  been  more  captivated,  more 
happy,  more  ecstatic. 

But  he  had  found  Cosette  sad;  Cosette  had  been  weeping. 
Her  eyes  were  red. 

This  was  the  first  cloud  in  that  wonderful  dream. 

Marius'  first  word  had  been:  "What  is  the  matter?" 

And  she  had  replied :  "This." 

Then  she  had  seated  herself  on  the  bench  near  the  steps,  and 
while  he  tremblingly  took  his  place  beside  her,  she  had  con- 
tinued : — 

"My  father  told  me  this  morning  to  hold  myself  in  readi- 
ness, because  he  has  business,  and  we  may  go  away  from  here." 

Marius  shivered  from  head  to  foot. 

When  one  is  at  the  end  of  one's  life,  to  die  means  to  go 
away ;  when  one  is  at  the  beginning  of  it,  to  go  away  means  to 
die. 


236  SAINT-DENIS 

For  the  last  six  weeks.  Marius  had  little  by  little,  slowly,  by 
degrees,  taken  possession  of  Cosette  each  day.  As  we  have 
already  explained,  in  the  case  of  first  love,  the  soul  is  taken 
long  before  the  body ;  later  on,  one  takes  the  body  long  before 
the  soul ;  sometimes  one  does  not  take  the  soul  at  all ;  the 
Faublas  and  the  Prudhommes  add :  "Because  there  is  none" ; 
but  the  sarcasm  is,  fortunately,  a  blasphemy.  So  Marius 
possessed  Cosette,  as  spirits  possess,  but  he  enveloped  her  with 
all  his  soul,  and  seized  her  jealously  with  incredible  convic- 
tion. He  possessed  her  smile,  her  breath,  her  perfume,  the 
profound  radiance  of  her  blue  eyes,  the  sweetness  of  her  skin 
when  he  touched  her  hand,  the  charming  mark  which  she  had 
on  her  neck,  all  her  thoughts.  Therefore,  he  possessed  all 
Cosette's  dreams. 

He  incessantly  gazed  at,  and  he  sometimes  touched  lightly 
with  his  breath,  the  short  locks  on  the  nape  of  her  neck,  and 
he  declared  to  himself  that  there  was  not  one  of  those  short 
hairs  which  did  not  belong  to  him,  Marius.  He  gazed  upon 
and  adored  the  things  that  she  wore,  her  knot  of  ribbon,  her 
gloves,  her  sleeves,  her  shoes,  her  cuffs,  as  sacred  objects  of 
which  he  was  the  master.  He  dreamed  that  he  was  the  lord 
of  those  pretty  shell  combs  which  she  wore  in  her  hair,  and  he 
even  said  to  himself,  in  confused  and  suppressed  stammerings 
of  voluptuousness  which  did  not  make  their  way  to  the  light, 
that  there  was  not  a  ribbon  of  her  gown,  not  a  mesh  in  her 
stockings,  not  a  fold  in  her  bodice,  which  was  not  his.  Beside 
Cosette  he  felt  himself  beside  his  own  property,  his  own  thing, 
his  own  despot  and  his  slave.  It  seemed  as  though  they  had 
so  intermingled  their  souls,  that  it  would  have  been  impossible 
to  tell  them  apart  had  they  wished  to  take  them  back  again. — 
"This  is  mine."  "No,  it  is  mine."  "I  assure  you  that  you  are 
mistaken.  This  is  my  property."  "What  you  are  taking  as 
your  own  is  myself." — Marius  was  something  that  made  a 
part  of  Cosette,  and  Cosette  was  something  which  made  a  part 
of  Marius.  Marius  felt  Cosette  within  him.  To  have  Cosette, 
to  possess  Cosette,  this,  to  him,  was  not  to  be  distinguished 
from  breathing.  It  was  in  the  midst  of  this  faith,  of  this 


ENCIIA\TMENT8  AND  DESOLATIONS  237 

intoxication,  of  this  virgin  possession,  unprecedented  and 
absolute,  of  this  sovereignty,  that  these  words :  "We  are  going1 
away,"  fell  suddenly,  at  a  blow,  and  that  the  harsh  voice  of 
reality  cried  to  him :  "Cosette  is  not  yours !" 

Marius  awoke.  For  six  weeks  Marius  had  been  living,  as 
we  have  said,  outside  of  life;  those  words,  going  away!  caused 
him  to  re-enter  it  harshly. 

He  found  not  a  word  to  say.  Cosette  merely  felt  that  his 
hand  was  very  cold.  She  said  to  him  in  her  turn :  "What 
is  the  matter?" 

He  replied  in  so  low  a  tone  that  Cosette  hardly  heard 
him: — 

"I  did  not  understand  what  you  said." 

She  began  again  : — 

"This  morning  my  father  told  me  to  settle  all  my  little 
affairs  and  to  hold  myself  in  readiness,  that  he  would  give 
me  his  linen  to  put  in  a  trunk,  that  he  was  obliged  to  go  on 
a  journey,  that  we  were  to  go  away,  that  it  is  necessary  to 
have  a  large  trunk  for  me  and  a  small  one  for  him,  and  that 
all  is  to  be  ready  in  a  week  from  now,  and  that  we  might  go  to 
England." 

"But  this  is  outrageous !"  exclaimed  Marius. 

It  is  certain,  that,  at  that  moment,  no  abuse  of  power,  no 
violence,  not  one  of  the  abominations  of  the  worst  tyrants, 
no  action  of  Busiris,  of  Tiberius,  or  of  Henry  VIII.,  could 
have  equalled  this  in  atrocity,  in  the  opinion  of  Marius;  M. 
Fauchelevent  taking  his  daughter  off  to  England  because  he 
had  business  there. 

He  demanded  in  a  weak  voice: — 

"And  when  do  you  start?" 

"He  did  not  say  when." 

"And  when  shall  you  return?" 

"He  did  not  say  when." 

Marius  rose  and  said  coldly: — 

"Cosette,  shall  you  go?" 

Cosette  turned  toward  him  her  beautiful  eyes,  all  filled  with 
anguish,  and  replied  in  a  sort  of  bewilderment : — 


238  8AIXT-DENIB 

"Where?" 

"To  England.     Shall  you  go?" 

"Why  do  you  say  you  to  me  ?" 

"I  ask  you  whether  you  will  go?" 

"What  do  you  expect  me  to  do?"  she  said,  clasping  her 
hands. 

"So,  you  will  go?" 

"If  my  father  goes." 

"So,  you  will  go?" 

Cosette  took  Marius'  hand,  and  pressed  it  without  re- 
plying. 

"Very  well,"  said  Marius,  "then  I  will  go  elsewhere." 

Cosette  felt  rather  than  understood  the  meaning  of  these 
words.  She  turned  so  pale  that  her  face  shone  white  through 
the  gloom.  She  stammered : — 

"What  do  you  mean  ?" 

Marius  looked  at  her,  then  raised  his  eyes  to  heaven,  and 
answered :  "Nothing." 

When  his  eyes  fell  again,  he  saw  Cosette  smiling  at  him. 
The  smile  of  a  woman  whom  one  loves  possesses  a  visible  radi- 
ance, even  at  night. 

"How  silly  we  are !     Marius,  I  have  an  idea." 

"What  is  it?" 

"If  we  go  away,  do  you  go  too !  I  will  tell  you  where ! 
Come  and  join  me  wherever  I  am." 

Marius  was  now  a  thoroughly  roused  man.  He  had  fallen 
back  into  reality.  He  cried  to  Cosette : — 

"Go  away  with  you!  Are  you  mad?  Why,  I  should  have 
to  have  money,  and  I  have  none  !  Go  to  England  ?  But  I  am 
in  debt  now,  I  owe,  I  don't  know  how  much,  more  than  ten 
louis  to  Courfeyrac,  one  of  my  friends  with  whom  you  are 
not  acquainted  !  I  have  an  old  hat  which  is  not  worth  three 
francs,  I  have  a  coat  which  lacks  buttons  in  front,  my  shirt 
is  all  ragged,  my  elbows  are  torn,  my  boots  let  in  the  water; 
for  the  last  six  weeks  I  have  not  thought  about  it,  and  I  have 
not  told  you  about  it.  You  only  see  me  at  night,  and  you  give 
me  your  love ;  if  you  were  to  see  me  in  the  daytime,  you  would 


ENCHANTMENTS  AND  DESOLATIONS  239 

give  me  a  sou  !  Go  to  England  !  Eh !  I  haven't  enough  to 
pay  for  a  passport !" 

He  threw  himself  against  a  tree  which  was  close  at  hand, 
erect,  his  brow  pressed  close  to  the  hark,  feeling  neither  the 
wood  which  flayed  his  skin,  nor  the  fever  which  was  throbbing 
in  his  temples,  and  there  he  stood  motionless,  on  the  point  of 
falling,  like  the  statue  of  despair. 

He  remained  a  long  time  thus.  One  could  remain  for 
eternity  in  such  abysses.  At  last  he  turned  round.  He  heard 
behind  him  a  faint  stifled  noise,  which  was  sweet  yet  sad. 

It  was  Cosette  sobbing. 

She  had  been  weeping  for  more  than  two  hours  beside 
Marius  as  he  meditated. 

He  came  to  her,  fell  at  her  knees,  and  slowly  prostrating 
himself,  he  took  the  tip  of  her  foot  which  peeped  out  from 
beneath  her  robe,  and  kissed  it. 

She  let  him  have  his  way  in  silence.  There  are  moments 
when  a  woman  accepts,  like  a  sombre  and  resigned  goddess, 
the  religion  of  love. 

"Do  not  weep,"  he  said. 

She  murmured : — 

"Not  when  I  may  be  going  away,  and  you  cannot  come !" 

He  went  on : — 

"Do  you  love  me?" 

She  replied,  sobbing,  by  that  word  from  paradise  which  is 
never  more  charming  than  amid  tears : — 

"I  adore  you !" 

He  continued  in  a  tone  which  was  an  indescribable  caress : — 

"Do  not  weep.  Tell  me,  will  you  do  this  for  me,  and  cease 
to  weep?" 

"Do  you  love  me?"  said  she. 

He  took  her  hand. 

"Cosette.  I  have  never  given  my  word  of  honor  to  any  one, 
because  my  word  of  honor  terrifies  me.  I  feel  that  my  father 
is  by  my  side.  Well,  I  give  you  my  most  sacred  word  of  honor, 
that  if  you  go  away  I  shall  die." 

In  the  tone  with  which  he  uttered  these  words  there  lav  a 


240  SAINT-DENIS 

melancholy  so  solemn  and  so  tranquil,  that  Cosette  trembled. 
She  felt  that  chill  which  is  produced  by  a  true  and  gloomy 
thing  as  it  passes  by.  The  shock  made  her  cease  weeping. 

"Now,  listen,"  said  he,  "do  not  expect  me  to-morrow." 

"Why?" 

"Do  not  expect  me  until  the  day  after  to-morrow." 

"Oh!   Why?" 

"You  will  see." 

"A  day  without  seeing  you !    But  that  is  impossible !" 

"Let  us  sacrifice  one  day  in  order  to  gain  our  whole  lives, 
perhaps." 

And  Marius  added  in  a  low  tone  and  in  an  aside: — 

"He  is  a  man  who  never  changes  his  habits,  and  he  has 
never  received  any  one  except  in  the  evening." 

"Of  what  man  are  you  speaking?"  asked  Cosette. 

"I?     I  said  nothing." 

"What  do  you  hope,  then?" 

"Wait  until  the  day  after  to-morrow." 

"You  wish  it?" 

"Yes,  Cosette." 

She  took  his  head  in  both  her  hands,  raising  herself  on  tip- 
toe in  order  to  be  on  a  level  with  him.  and  tried  to  read  his 
hope  in  his  eyes. 

Marius  resumed : — 

"Now  that  I  think  of  it,  you  ought  to  know  my  address: 
something  might  happen,  one  never  knows ;  I  live  with  that 
friend  named  Courfeyrac,  Rue  de  la  Verrerie,  No.  16." 

He  searched  in  his  pocket,  pulled  out  his  penknife,  and 
with  the  blade  he  wrote  on  the  plaster  of  the  wall : — 

"16  Rue  de  la  Verrerie." 

In  the  meantime,  Cosette  had  begun  to  gaze  into  his  eyes 
once  more. 

"Tell  me  your  thought,  Marius ;  you  have  some  idea.  Tell 
it  to  me.  Oh !  tell  me,  so  that  I  may  pass  a  pleasant  night." 

"This  is  my  idea:  that  it  is  impossible  that  God  should 
mean  to  part  us.  Wait ;  expect  me  the  day  after  to-morrow." 

"What  shall  I  do  until  then  ?"  said  Cosette.    "You  are  out- 


ENCHANTMENTS   AND  DESOLATIONS  241 

side,  you  go,  and  come !  How  happy  men  are !  I  shall  re- 
main entirely  alone!  Oh!  How  sad  I  shall  he!  What  is  it 
that  you  are  going  to  do  to-morrow  evening?  tell  me." 

"I  am  going  to  try  something." 

"Then  I  will  pray  to  God  and  I  will  think  of  you  here,  so 
that  you  may  be  successful.  I  will  question  you  no  further, 
since  you  do  not  wish  it.  You  are  my  master.  I  shall  pass 
the  evening  to-morrow  in  singing  that  music  from  Euryanthe 
that  you  love,  and  that  you  came  one  evening  to  listen  to, 
outside  my  shutters.  But  day  after  to-morrow  you  will  come 
early.  I  shall  expect  you  at  dusk,  at  nine  o'clock  precisely,  I 
warn  you.  Mon  Dieu !  how  sad  it  is  that  the  days  are  so  long'! 
On  the  stroke  of  nine,  do  you  understand,  I  shall  be  in  the 
garden." 

"And  I  also." 

And  without  having  uttered  it,  moved  by  the  same  thought, 
impelled  by  those  electric  currents  which  place  lovers  in  con- 
tinual communication,  both  being  intoxicated  with  delight 
even  in  their  sorrow,  they  fell  into  each  other's  arms,  without 
perceiving  that  their  lips  met  while  their  uplifted  eyes,  over- 
flowing with  rapture  and  full  of  tears,  gazed  upon  the  stars. 

When  Marius  went  forth,  the  street  was  deserted.  This  was 
the  moment  when  fiponine  was  following  the  ruffians  to  the 
boulevard. 

While  Marius  had  been  dreaming  with  his  head  pressed  to 
the  tree,  an  idea  had  crossed  his  mind ;  an  idea,  alas !  that  he 
himself  judged  to  be  senseless  and  impossible.  He  had  come 
to  a  desperate  decision. 

CHAPTER    VII 

THE  OLD  HEART  AND  THE  YOUNG  HEART  IN  THE  PRESENCE  OF 
EACH  OTHER 

AT  that  epoch,  Father  Gillenormand  was  well  past  his 
ninety-first  birthday.  He  still  lived  with  Mademoiselle  Gille- 
normand in  the  Kue  des  Fillea-du-Calvaire.  No.  6,  in  the  old 


242  8A1XT-DENI8 

house  which  he  owned.  He  was,  as  the  reader  will  remember, 
one  of  those  antique  old  men  who  await  death  perfectly  erect, 
whom  age  bears  down  without  bending,  and  whom  even  sorrow 
cannot  curve. 

Still,  his  daughter  had  been  saying  for  some  time:  "My 
father  is  sinking."  He  no  longer  boxed  the  maids'  ears;  he 
no  longer  thumped  the  landing-place  so  vigorously  with  his 
cane  when  Basque  was  slow  in  opening  the  door.  The  Revo- 
lution of  July  had  exasperated  him  for  the  space  of  barely 
six  months.  He  had  viewed,  almost  tranquilly,  that  coupling 
of  words,  in  the  Moniteur:  M.  Humblot-Conte,  peer  of  France. 
The  fact  is,  that  the  old  man  was  deeply  dejected.  He  did  not 
bend,  he  did  not  yield ;  this  was  no  more  a  characteristic  of  his 
physical  than  of  his  moral  nature,  but  he  felt  himself  giving 
way  internally.  For  four  years  he  had  been  waiting  for 
Marius,  with  his  foot  firmly  planted,  that  is  the  exact  word, 
in  the  conviction  that  that  good-for-nothing  young  scamp 
would  ring  at  his  door  some  day  or  other ;  now  he  had  reached 
the  point,  where,  at  certain  gloomy  hours,  he  said  to  himself, 
that  if  Marius  made  him  wait  much  longer — It  was  not  death 
that  was  insupportable  to  him ;  it  was  the  idea  that  perhaps  he 
should  never  see  Marius  again.  The  idea  of  never  seeing 
Marius  again  had  never  entered  his  brain  until  that  day;  now 
the  thought  began  to  recur  to  him,  and  it  chilled  him.  Ab- 
sence, as  is  always  the  case  in  genuine  and  natural  sentiments, 
had  only  served  to  augment  the  grandfather's  love  for  the 
ungrateful  child,  who  had  gone  off  like  a  flash.  It  is  during 
December  nights,  when  the  cold  stands  at  ten  degrees,  that  one 
thinks  oftenest  of  the  son. 

M.  Gillenormand  was,  or  thought  himself,  above  all  things, 
incapable  of  taking  a  single  step,  he — the  grandfather,  to- 
wards his  grandson ;  "I  would  die  rather,"  he  said  to  himself. 
He  did  not  consider  himself  as  the  least  to  blame;  but  he 
thought  of  Marius  only  with  profound  tenderness,  and  the 
mute  despair  of  an  elderly,  kindly  old  man  who  is  about  to 
vanish  in  the  dark. 

He  began  to  lose  his  teeth,  which  added  to  his  sadness. 


ENCUA\TMENT8  AND  DESOLATIONS  243 

M.  Gillenonnand,  without  however  acknowledging  it  to  him- 
self, for  it  would  have  rendered  him  furious  and  ashamed,  had 
never  loved  a  mistress  as  he  loved  Marius. 

He  had  had  placed  in  his  chamber,  opposite  the  head  of  his 
hed,  so  that  it  should  be  the  first  thing  on  which  his  eyes  fell 
on  waking,  an  old  portrait  of  his  other  daughter,  who  was 
dead,  Madame  Pontmercy,  a  portrait  which  had  been  taken 
when  she  was  eighteen.  He  gazed  incessantly  at  that  por- 
trait. One  day,  he  happened  to  say,  as  he  gazed  upon  it: — 

"I  think  the  likeness  is  strong." 

"To  my  sister?"  inquired  Mademoiselle  Gillenormand. 
"Yes,  certainly." 

"The  old  man  added  :— 

"And  to  him  also." 

Once  as  he  sat  with  his  knees  pressed  together,  and  his  eyes 
almost  closed,  in  a  despondent  attitude,  his  daughter  ventured 
to  say  to  him  : — 

"Father,  are  you  as  angry  with  him  as  ever?" 

She  paused,  not  daring  to  proceed  further. 

"With  whom?"  he  demanded. 

"With  that  poor  Marius." 

He  raised  his  aged  head,  laid  his  withered  and  emaciated  fist 
on  the  table,  and  exclaimed  in  his  most  irritated  and  vibrating 
tone : — 

"Poor  Marius,  do  you  say !  That  gentleman  is  a  knave,  a 
wretched  scoundrel,  a.  vain  little  ingrate,  a  heartless,  soulless, 
haughty,  and  wicked  man  !" 

And  he  turned  away  so  that  his  daughter  might  not  see  the 
tear  that  stood  in  his  eye. 

Three  days  later  he  broke  a  silence  which  had  lasted  four 
hours,  to  say  to  his  daughter  point-blank : — 

"I  had  the  honor  to  ask  Mademoiselle  Gillenormand  never 
to  mention  him  to  me." 

Aunt  Gillenormand  renounced  every  effort,  and  pronounced 
this  acute  diagnosis:  "My  father  never  cared  very  much  for 
my  sister  after  her  folly.  It  is  clear  that  he  detests 
Marius." 


244  SAINT-DENIS 

"After  her  folly"  meant :  "after  she  had  married  the  colonel." 

However,  as  the  reader  has  been  able  to  conjecture,  Made- 
moiselle Gillenormand  had  failed  in  her  attempt  to  substitute 
her  favorite,  the  officer  of  lancers,  for  Marius.  The  substitute, 
Theodule,  had  not  been  a  success.  M.  Gillenormand  had  not 
accepted  the  quid  pro  quo.  A  vacancy  in  the  heart  does  not 
accommodate  itself  to  a  stop-gap.  Theodule,  on  his  side, 
though  he  scented  the  inheritance,  was  disgusted  at  the  task 
of  pleasing.  The  goodman  bored  the  lancer;  and  the  lancer 
shocked  the  goodman.  Lieutenant  Theodule  was  gay,  no 
doubt,  but  a  chatter-box,  frivolous,  but  vulgar;  a  high  liver, 
but  a  frequenter  of  bad  company ;  he  had  mistresses,  it  is  true, 
and  he  had  a  great  deal  to  say  about  them,  it  is  true  also ;  but 
he  talked  badly.  All  his  good  qualities  had  a  defect.  M.  Gille- 
normand was  worn  out  with  hearing  him  tell  about  the  love 
affairs  that  he  had  in  the  vicinity  of  the  barracks  in  the  Rue 
de  Babylone.  And  then,  Lieutenant  Gillenormand  sometimes 
came  in  his  uniform,  with  the  tri-colored  cockade.  This  ren- 
dered him  downright  intolerable.  Finally,  Father  Gillenor- 
mand had  said  to  his  daughter:  "I've  had  enough  of  that 
Theodule.  I  haven't  much  taste  for  warriors  in  time  of  peace. 
Receive  him  if  you  choose.  I  don't  know  but  I  prefer  slashers 
to  fellows  that  drag  their  swords.  The  clash  of  blades  in  battle 
is  less  dismal,  after  all,  than  the  clank  of  the  scabbard  on  the 
pavement.  And  then,  throwing  out  your  chest  like  a  bully  and 
lacing  yourself  like  a  girl,  with  stays  under  your  cuirass,  is 
doubly  ridiculous.  When  one  is  a  veritable  man,  one  holds 
equally  aloof  from  swagger  and  from  affected  airs.  He  is 
neither  a  blusterer  nor  a  finnicky-hearted  man.  Keep  your 
Theodule  for  yourself." 

It  was  in  vain  that  his  daughter  said  to  him :  "But  he  is 
your  grandnephew,  nevertheless," — it  turned  out  that  M.  Gil- 
lenormand, who  was  a  grandfather  to  the  very  finger-tips,  was 
not  in  the  least  a  grand-uncle. 

In  fact,  as  he  had  good  sense,  and  as  he  had  compared  the 
two,  Theodule  had  only  served  to  make  him  regret  Marius  all 
the  more. 


ENCHANTMENTS  AND  DESOLATIONS  245 

One  evening, — it  was  the  24th  of  June,  which  did  not  pre- 
vent Father  Gillenormand  having  a  rousing  fire  on  the  hearth, 
— he  had  dismissed  his  daughter,  who  was  sewing  in  a  neigh- 
boring apartment.  He  was  alone  in  his  chamber,  amid  its  pas- 
toral scenes,  with  his  feet  propped  on  the  andirons,  half  en- 
veloped in  his  huge  screen  of  coromandel  lacquer,  with  its  nine 
leaves,  with  his  elhow  resting  on  a  table  where  burned  two 
candles  under  a  green  shade,  engulfed  in  his  tapestry  arm- 
chair, and  in  his  hand  a  book  which  he  was  not  reading.  He 
was  dressed,  according  to  his  wont,  like  an  incroyable,  and  re- 
sembled an  antique  portrait  by  Garat.  This  would  have  made 
people  run  after  him  in  the  street,  had  not  his  daughter  cov- 
ered him  up,  whenever  he  went  out,  in  a  vast  bishop's  wadded 
cloak,  which  concealed  his  attire.  At  home,  he  never  wore  a 
dressing  gown,  except  when  he  rose  and  retired.  "It  gives  one 
a  look  of  age,"  said  he. 

Father  Gillenormand  was  thinking  of  Marius  lovingly  and 
bitterly ;  and.  as  usual,  bitterness  predominated.  His  tenderness 
once  soured  always  ended  by  boiling  and  turning  to  indigna- 
tion. He  had  reached  the  point  where  a  man  tries  to  make 
up  his  mind  and  to  accept  that  which  rends  his  heart.  He 
was  explaining  to  himself  that  there  was  no  longer  any  reason 
why  Marius  should  return,  that  if  he  intended  to  return,  he 
should  have  done  it  long  ago,  that  he  must  renounce  the  idea. 
He  was  trying  to  accustom  himself  to  the  thought  that  all  was 
over,  and  that  he  should  die  without  having  beheld  "that  gen- 
tleman" again.  But  his  whole  nature  revolted;  his  aged  pa- 
ternity would  not  consent  to  this.  "Well !"  said  he, — this  was 
his  doleful  refrain, — "he  will  not  return!"  His  bald  head  had 
fallen  upon  his  breast,  and  he  fixed  a  melancholy  and  irritated 
gaze  upon  the  ashes  on  his  hearth. 

In  the  very  midst  of  his  revery,  his  old  servant  Basque  en- 
tered, and  inquired: — 

"Can  Monsieur  receive  M.  Marius?" 

The  old  man  sat  up  erect,  pallid,  and  like  a  corpse  which 
rises  under  the  influence  of  a  galvanic  shock.  All  his  blood 
had  retreated  to  his  heart.  He  stammered : — 


24fi  8AIXT-DENI8 

"M.  Marius  what?" 

"I  don't  know,"  replied  Basque,  intimidated  and  put  out 
of  countenance  by  his  master's  air;  "I  have  not  seen  him. 
Xicolette  came  in  and  said  to  me :  'There's  a  young  man  here ; 
say  that  it  is  M.  Marius.' ' 

Father  Gillenormand  stammered  in  a  low  voice: — 

"Show  him  in." 

And  he  remained  in  the  same  attitude,  with  shaking  head, 
and  his  eyes  fixed  on  the  door.  It  opened  once  more.  A  young 
man  entered.  It  was  Marius. 

Marius  halted  at  the  door,  as  though  waiting  to  be  bidden 
to  enter. 

His  almost  squalid  attire  was  not  perceptible  in  the  ob- 
scurity caused  by  the  shade.  Nothing  could  be  seen  but  his 
calm,  grave,  but  strangely  sad  face. 

It  was  several  minutes  before  Father  Gillenormand,  dulled 
with  amazement  and  joy,  could  see  anything  except  a  bright- 
ness as  when  one  is  in  the  presence  of  an  apparition.  He  was 
on  the  point  of  swooning;  he  saw  Marius  through  a  dazzling 
light.  It  certainly  was  he,  it  certainly  was  Marius. 

At  last !  After  the  lapse  of  four  years !  He  grasped  him 
entire,  so  to  speak,  in  a  single  glance.  He  found  him  noble, 
handsome,  distinguished,  well-grown,  a  complete  man,  with  a 
suitable  mien  and  a  charming  air.  He  felt  a  desire  to  open 
his  arms,  to  call  him,  to  fling  himself  forward ;  his  heart 
melted  with  rapture,  affectionate  words  swelled  and  overflowed 
his  breast;  at  length  all  his  tenderness  came  to  the  light  and 
reached  his  lips,  and,  by  a  contrast  which  constituted  the  very 
foundation  of  his  nature,  what  came  forth  was  harshness.  He 
said  abruptly : — 

"What  have  you  come  here  for  ?" 

Marius  replied  with  embarrassment: — 

"Monsieur — " 

M.  Gillenormand  would  have  liked  to  have  Marius  throw 
himself  into  his  arms.  He  was  displeased  with  Marius  and 
with  himself.  He  was  conscious  that  he  was  brusque,  and  that 
Marius  was  cold.  It  caused  the  goodman  unendurable  and 


ENCHANTMENTS  AND  DEtiOLATIONR  247 

irritating  anxiety  to  feel  so  tender  and  forlorn  within,  and 
only  to  be  able  to  be  hard  outside;.  Bitterness  returned.  He 
interrupted  Marius  in  a  peevish  tone: — 

"Then  why  did  you  come  ?" 

That  "then"  signified:  //  you  do  not  come  to  embrace  me. 
Marius  looked  at  his  grandfather,  whose  pallor  gave  him  a 
face  of  marble. 

"Monsieur — 

"Have  you  come  to  beg  my  pardon?  Do  you  acknowledge 
your  faults?" 

He  thought  he  was  putting  Marius  on  the  right  road,  and 
that  "the  child"  would  yield.  Marius  shivered ;  it  was  the 
denial  of  his  father  that  was  required  of  him ;  he  dropped  his 
eyes  and  replied: — 

"No,  sir." 

"Then,"  exclaimed  the  old  man  impetuously,  with  a  grief 
that  was  poignant  and  full  of  wrath,  "what  do  you  want  of 
me?" 

Marius  clasped  his  hands,  advanced  a  step,  and  said  in  a 
feeble  and  trembling  voice : — 

"Sir,  have  pity  on  me." 

These  words  touched  M.  Gillenormand ;  uttered  a  little 
sooner,  they  would  have  rendered  him  tender,  but  they  came 
too  late.  The  grandfather  rose;  he  supported  himself  with 
both  hands  on  his  cane;  his  lips  were  white,  his  brow  wavered, 
but  his  lofty  form  towered  above  Marius  as  he  bowed. 

"Pity  on  you,  sir !  It  is  youth  demanding  pity  of  the  old 
man  of  ninety-one!  You  are  entering  into  life,  I  am  leaving 
it;  you  go  to  the  play,  to  balls,  to  the  cafe,  to  the  billiard-hall ; 
you  have  wit,  you  please  the  women,  you  are  a  handsome  fel- 
low; as  for  me,  I  spit  on  my  brands  in  the  heart  of  summer; 
you  are  rich  with  the  only  riches  that  are  really  such,  I  pos- 
sess all  the  poverty  of  ago;  infirmity,  isolation!  You  have 
your  thirty-two  teeth,  a  good  digestion,  bright  eyes,  strength, 
appetite,  health,  gayety,  a  forest  of  black  hair;  I  have  no 
longer  even  white  hair,  I  have  lost  my  teeth,  I  am  losing  my 
legs,  I  am  losing  my  memory ;  there  are  three  names  of  streets 


048  SAINT-DEXI8 

that  I  confound  incessantly,  the  Rue  Chariot,  the  Rue  du 
Chaume,  and  the  Rue  Saint-Claude,  that  is  what  I  have  come 
to ;  you  have  before  you  the  whole  future,  full  of  sunshine,  and 
I  am  beginning  to  lose  my  sight,  so  far  am  I  advancing  into 
the  night;  you  are  in  love,  that  is  a  matter  of  course,  I  am 
beloved  by  no  one  in  all  the  world ;  and  you  ask  pity  of  me ! 
Parbleu !  Moliere  forgot  that.  If  that  is  the  way  you  jest  at 
the  courthouse,  Messieurs  the  lawyers,  I  sincerely  compliment 
you.  You  are  droll." 

And  the  octogenarian  went  on  in  a  grave  and  angry 
voice : — 

"Come,  now,  what  do  you  want  of  me  ?" 

"Sir,"  said  Marius,  "I  know  that  my  presence  is  displeasing 
to  you,  but  I  have  come  merely  to  ask  one  thing  of  you,  and 
then  I  shall  go  away  immediately." 

"You  are  a  fool !"  said  the  old  man.  "Who  said  that  you 
were  to  go  away?" 

This  was  the  translation  of  the  tender  words  which  lay  at 
the  bottom  of  his  heart : — 

"Ask  my  pardon !   Throw  yourself  on  my  neck !" 

M.  Gillenormand  felt  that  Marius  would  leave  him  in  a  few 
moments,  that  his  harsh  reception  had  repelled  the  lad,  that 
his  hardness  was  driving  him  away ;  he  said  all  this  to  himself, 
and  it  augmented  his  grief;  and  as  his  grief  was  straightway 
converted  into  wrath,  it  increased  his  harshness.  He  would 
have  liked  to  have  Marius  understand,  and  Marius  did  not 
understand,  which  made  the  goodman  furious. 

He  began  again : — 

"What!  you  deserted  me,  your  grandfather,  you  left  my 
house  to  go  no  one  knows  whither,  you  drove  your  aunt  to 
despair,  you  went  off,  it  is  easily  guessed,  to  lead  a  bachelor 
life;  it's  more  convenient,  to  play  the  dandy,  to  come  in  at  all 
hours,  to  amuse  yourself;  you  have  given  me  no  signs  of  life, 
you  have  contracted  debts  without  even  telling  me  to  pay  them, 
you  have  become  a  smasher  of  windows  and  a  blusterer,  and, 
at  the  end  of  four  years,  you  come  to  me,  and  that  is  all  you 
have  to  say  to  me !" 


ENCHANTMENTS  AND  DESOLATIONS  249 

This  violent  fashion  of  driving  a  grandson  to  tenderness 
was  productive  only  of  silence  on  the  part  of  Marius.  M.  Gil- 
lenormand  folded  his  arms;  a  gesture  which  with  him  was 
peculiarly  imperious,  and  apostrophized  Marius  bitterly: — 

"Let  us  make  an  end  of  this.  You  have  come  to  ask  some- 
thing of  me,  you  say?  Well,  what?  What  is  it?  Speak  !" 

"Sir,"  said  Marius,  with  the  look  of  a  man  who  feels  that 
he  is  falling  over  a  precipice,  "I  have  come  to  ask  your  per- 
mission to  marry." 

M.  Gillenorrnand  rang  the  bell.  Basque  opened  the  door 
half-way. 

"Call  my  daughter." 

A  second  later,  the  door  was  opened  once  more,  Mad- 
emoiselle Gillenormand  did  not  enter,  but  showed  herself ; 
Marius  was  standing,  mute,  with  pendant  arms  and  the  face 
of  a  criminal ;  M.  Gillenormand  was  pacing  back  and  forth  in 
the  room.  He  turned  to  his  daughter  and  said  to  her : — 

"Nothing.  It  is  Monsieur  Marius.  Say  good  day  to  him. 
Monsieur  wishes  to  marry.  That's  all.  Go  away." 

The  curt,  hoarse  sound  of  the  old  man's  voice  announced 
a  strange  degree  of  excitement.  The  aunt  gazed  at  Marius 
with  a  frightened  air,  hardly  appeared  to  recognize  him,  did 
not  allow  a  gesture  or  a  syllable  to  escape  her,  and  disappeared 
at  her  father's  breath  more  swiftly  than  a  straw  before  the 
hurricane. 

In  the  meantime,  Father  Gillenormand  had  returned  and 
placed  his  back  against  the  chimney-piece  once  more. 

"You  marry !  At  one  and  twenty !  You  have  arranged  that ! 
You  have  only  a  permission  to  ask !  a  formality.  Sit  down, 
sir.  Well,  you  have  had  a  revolution  since  I  had  the  honor 
to  see  you  last.  The  Jacobins  got  the  upper  hand.  You  must 
have  been  delighted.  Are  you  not  a  Republican  since  you  are 
a  Baron?  You  can  make  that  agree.  The  Republic  makes 
a  good  sauce  for  the  barony.  Are  you  one  of  those  decorated 
by  July?  Have  you  taken  the  Louvre  at  all,  sir?  Quite  near 
here,  in  the  Rue  Saint-Antoine,  opposite  the  Rue  des  Xonain- 
dieres,  there  is  a  cannon-ball  incrusted  in  the  wall  of  the  third 


050  KA  i  \r-DEy  is 

story  of  a  house  with  this  inscription :  'July  28th,  1830.'  Go 
take  a  look  at  that.  It  produces  a  good  effect.  Ah !  those 
friends  of  yours  do  pretty  things.  By  the  way,  aren't  they 
erecting  a  fountain  in  the  place  of  the  monument  of  M.  le 
Due  de  Berry?  So  you  want  to  marry?  Whom?  Can  one 
inquire  without  indiscretion?" 

He  paused,  and,  before  Marius  had  time  to  answer,  he  added 
violently : — 

"Come  now,  you  have  a  profession  ?  A  fortune  made  ?  How 
much  do  you  earn  at  your  trade  of  lawyer  ?" 

"Nothing,"  said  Marius,  with  a  sort  of  firmness  and  resolu- 
tion that  was  almost  fierce. 

"Nothing?  Then  all  that  you  have  to  live  upon  is  the 
twelve  hundred  livres  that  I  allow  you?" 

Marius  did  not  reply.    M.  Gillenormand  continued: — 

"Then  I  understand  the  girl  is  rich  ?" 

"As  rich  as  I  am." 

"What!    No  dowry?" 

"No." 

"Expectations  ?" 

"I  think  not." 

"Utterly  naked!     What's  the  father?" 

"I  don't  know." 

"And  what's  her  name?" 

"Mademoiselle  Fauchelevent." 

"Fauchewhat  ?" 

"Fauchelevent." 

"Pttt !"  ejaculated  the  old  gentleman. 

"Sir!"  exclaimed  Marius. 

M.  Gillenormand  interrupted  him  with  the  tone  of  a  man 
who  is  speaking  to  himself: — 

"That's  right,  one  and  twenty  years  of  age,  no  profession, 
twelve  hundred  livres  a  year,  Madame  la  Baronne  de  Pont- 
mercy  will  go  and  purchase  a  couple  of  sous'  worth  of  parsley 
from  the  fruiterer." 

"Sir,"  repeated  Marius,  in  the  despair  at  the  last  hope. 
which  was  vanishing,  "I  entreat  you !  I  conjure  you  in  the 


ENCHANTMENTS  AND  DESOLATIONS  251 

name  of  Heaven,  with  clasped  hands,  sir,  T  throw  myself  at 
your  feet,  permit  me  to  marry  her!" 

The  old  man  burst  into  a  shout  of  strident  and  mournful 
laughter,  coughing  and  laughing  at  the  same  time. 

"Ah!  ah!  ah!  You  said  to  yourself:  Tardine!  I'll  Lro 
hunt  up  that  old  blockhead,  that  absurd  numskull !  What  a 
shame  that  I'm  not  twenty-five !  How  I'd  treat  him  to  a  nice 
respectful  summons!  How  nicely  I'd  get  along  without  him! 
It's  nothing  to  me.  I'd  say  to  him :  "You're  only  too  happy 
to  see  me,  you  old  idiot,  I  want  to  marry,  I  desire  to  wed  Mam- 
selle  No-matter-whom,  daughter  of  Monsieur  No-matter-what, 
I  have  no  shoes,  she  has  no  chemise,  that  just  suits ;  I  want  to 
throw  my  career,  my  future,  my  youth,  my  life  to  the  dogs ;  I 
wish  to  take  a  plunge  into  wretchedness  with  a  woman  around 
my  neck,  that's  an  idea,  and  you  must  consent  to  it !"  and  the 
old  fossil  will  consent.'  Go,  my  lad,  do  as  you  like,  attach  your 
paving-stone,  marry  your  Pousselevent,  your  Coupelevent — 
Never,  sir,  never !" 

"Father—" 

"Never !" 

At  the  tone  in  which  that  "never"  was  uttered,  Marius  lost 
all  hope.  He  traversed  the  chamber  with  slow  steps,  with 
bowed  head,  tottering  and  more  like  a  dying  man  than  like  one 
merely  taking  his  departure.  M.  Gillenormand  followed  him 
with  his  eyes,  and  at  the  moment  when  the  door  opened,  and 
Marius  was  on  the  point  of  going  out,  he  advanced  four  paces, 
with  the  senile  vivacity  of  impetuous  and  spoiled  old  gentle- 
men, seized  Marius  by  the  collar,  brought  him  back  energeti- 
cally into  the  room,  flung  him  into  an  arm-chair  and  sail*" 
to  him: — 

"Tell  me  all  about  it!" 

"It  was  that  single  word  "father"  which  had  effected  this 
revolution. 

Marius  stared  at  him  in  bewilderment.  M.  Gillenormand's 
mobile  face  was  no  longer  expressive  of  anything  but  rough 
and  ineffable  good-nature.  The  grandsire  had  given  way 
before  the  grandfather. 


252 

"Come,  see  here,  speak,  tell  me  about  your  love  affairs, 
jabber,  tell  me  everything !  Sapristi !  how  stupid  young  folks 
are !" 

"Father — "  repeated  Marius. 

The  old  man's  entire  countenance  lighted  up  with  inde- 
scribable radiance. 

"Yes,  that's  right,  call  me  father,  and  you'll  see !" 

There  was  now  something  so  kind,  so  gentle,  so  open- 
hearted,  and  so  paternal  in  this  brusqueness,  that  Marius,  in 
the  sudden  transition  from  discouragement  to  hope,  was 
stunned  and  intoxicated  by  it,  as  it  were.  He  was  seated 
near  the  table,  the  light  from  the  candles  brought  out  the 
dilapidation  of  his  costume,  which  Father  Gillenormand  re- 
garded with  amazement. 

"Well,  father—"  said  Marius. 

"Ah,  by  the  way,"  interrupted  M.  Gillenormand,  "you 
really  have  not  a  penny  then?  You  are  dressed  like  a  pick- 
pocket." 

He  rummaged  in  a  drawer,  drew  forth  a  purse,  which  he 
laid  on  the  table :  "Here  are  a  hundred  louis,  buy  yourself 
a  hat." 

"Father,"  pursued  Marius,  "my  good  father,  if  you  only 
knew !  I  love  her.  You  cannot  imagine  it ;  the  first  time  I 
saw  her  was  at  the  Luxembourg,  she  came  there ;  in  the  begin- 
ning, I  did  not  pay  much  heed  to  her,  and  then,  I  don't  know 
how  it  came  about,  I  fell  in  love  with  her.  Oh !  how  unhappy 
that  made  me !  Now,  at  last.  I  see  her  every  day,  at  her  own 
home,  her  father  does  not  know  it,  just  fancy,  they  are  going 
away,  it  is  in  the  garden  that  we  meet,  in  the  evening,  her 
father  means  to  take  her  to  England, then  I  said  to  myself :  Til 
go  and  see  my  grandfather  and  tell  him  all  about  the  affair. 
I  should  go  mad  first.  I  should  die,  I  should  fall  ill,  I  should 
throw  myself  into  the  water.  I  absolutely  must  marry  her, 
since  I  should  go  mad  otherwise.'  This  is  the  whole  truth, 
and  I  do  not  think  that  I  have  omitted  anything.  She  lives 
in  a  garden  with  an  iron  fence,  in  the  Rue  Plumet.  It  is  in 
the  neighborhood  of  the  Invalides." 


AND  DESOLATIONS  253 

Father  Gillenormand  had  seated  himself,  with  a  beaming 
countenance,  beside  Marius.  As  he  listened  to  him  and  drank 
in  the  sound  of  his  voice,  he  enjoyed  at  the  same  time  a  pro- 
tracted pinch  of  snuff.  At  the  words  "Rue  Plumet"  he  inter- 
rupted his  inhalation  and  allowed  the  remainder  of  his  snuff 
to  fall  upon  his  knees. 

"The  Rue  Plumet,  the  Rue  Plumet,  did  you  say? — Let  us 
see! — Are  there  not  barracks  in  that  vicinity? — Why.  yes, 
that's  it.  Your  cousin  Theodule  has  spoken  to  me  about  it. 
The  lancer,  the  officer.  A  gay  girl,  my  good  friend,  a  gay  girl ! 
— Pardieu,  yes,  the  Rue  Plumet.  It  is  what  used  to  be  called 
the  Rue  Blomet. — It  all  comes  back  to  me  now.  I  have  heard 
of  that  little  girl  of  the  iron  railing  in  the  Rue  Plumet.  In  a 
garden,  a  Pamela.  Your  taste  is  not  bad.  She  is  said  to  be  a 
very  tidy  creature.  Between  ourselves,  I  think  that  simpleton 
of  a  lancer  has  been  courting  her  a  bit.  I  don't  know  where 
he  did  it.  However,  that's  not  to  the  purpose.  Besides,  he  is 
not  to  be  believed.  He  brags,  Marius  !  I  think  it  quite  proper 
that  a  young  man  like  you  should  be  in  love.  It's  the  right 
thing  at  your  age.  I  like  you  better  as  a  lover  than  as  a  Jaco- 
bin. I  like  you  better  in  love  with  a  petticoat,  sapristi !  with 
twenty  petticoats,  than  with  M.  de  Robespierre.  For  my  part, 
I  will  do  myself  the  justice  to  say,  that  in  the  line  of  sans-cu- 
lottes,  I  have  never  loved  any  one  but  women.  Pretty  girls  are 
pretty  girls,  the  deuce !  There's  no  objection  to  that.  As  for 
the  little  one.  she  receives  you  without  her  father's  knowledge. 
That's  in  the  established  order  of  things.  I  have  had  adven- 
tures of  that  same  sort  myself.  More  than  one.  Do  you  know 
what  is  done  then  ?  One  does  not  take  the  matter  ferociously ; 
one  does  not  precipitate  himself  into  the  tragic;  one  does  not 
make  one's  mind  to  marriage  and  M.  le  Maire  with  hi?  pcarf. 
One  simply  behaves  lilrn  a  fellow  of  spirit.  One  shows  good 
sense.  Slip  along,  mortals ;  don't  marry.  You  come  and  look 
up  your  grandfather,  who  is  a  good-natured  fellow  at  bottom, 
and  who  always  has  a  few  rolls  of  louis  in  an  old  drawer; 
you  say  to  him:  'See  here,  grandfather.'  And  the  grand- 
father says:  'That's  a  simple  matter.  Youth  must  amuse 


254  SAINT-DENIS 

itself,  and  old  age  must  wear  out.  I  have  been  young,  you 
will  be  old.  Come,  my  boy,  you  shall  pass  it  on  to  your 
grandson.  Here  are  two  hundred  pistoles.  Amuse  yourself, 
deuce  take  it!'  Nothing  better!  That's  the  way  the  affair 
should  be  treated.  You  don't  marry,  but  that  does  no  harm. 
You  understand  me?" 

Marius,  petrified  and  incapable  of  uttering  a  syllable,  made 
a  sign  with  his  head  that  he  did  not. 

The  old  man  burst  out  laughing,  winked  his  aged  eye.  gave 
him  a  slap  on  the  knee,  stared  him  full  in  the  face  with  a 
mysterious  and  beaming  air,  and  said  to  him,  with  the  tender- 
est  of  shrugs  of  the  shoulder : — 

"Booby !  make  her  your  mistress." 

Marius  turned  pale.  He  had  understood  nothing  of  what 
his  grandfather  had  just  said.  This  twaddle  about  the  Rue 
Blomett  Pamela,  the  barracks,  the  lancer,  had  passed  before 
Marius  like  a  dissolving  view.  Nothing  of  all  that  could  bear 
any  reference  to  Cosette,  who  was  a  lily.  The  good  man  was 
wandering  in  his  mind.  But  this  wandering  terminated  in 
words  which  Marius  did  understand,  and  which  were  a  mortal 
insult  to  Cosette.  Those  words,  "make  her  your  mistress," 
entered  the  heart  of  the  strict  young  man  like  a  sword. 

He  rose,  picked  up  his  hat  which  lay  on  the  floor,  and 
walked  to  the  door  with  a  firm,  assured  step.  There  he  turned 
round,  bowed  deeply  to  his  grandfather,  raised  his  head  erect 
again,  and  said : — 

"Five  years  ago  you  insulted  my  father;  to-day  you  have 
insulted  my  wife.  I  ask  nothing  more  of  you,  sir.  Farewell." 

Father  Gillenormand,  utterly  confounded,  opened  his 
mouth,  extended  his  arms,  tried  to  rise,  and  before  he  could 
utter  a  word,  the  door  closed  once  more,  and  Marius  had 
disappeared. 

The  old  man  remained  for  several  minutes  motionless  and  as 
though  struck  by  lightning,  without  the  power  to  speak  or 
breathe,  as  though  a  clenched  fist  grasped  his  throat.  At  last 
he  tore  himself  from  his  arm-chair,  ran,  so  far  as  a  man  can 
run  at  ninety-one,  to  the  door,  opened  it,  and  cried: — 


ENCHANTMRXTR   AND  DKKOLATION8  255 

"Help !     Help !" 

His  daughter  made  hor  appearance,  then  the  domestics.  He 
began  again,  with  a  pitiful  rattle:  "Run  after  him!  Bring 
him  back  !  What  have  I  done  to  him  ?  He  is  mad !  He  is 
going  away  !  Ah  !  my  (Jod  !  Ah  !  my  God  !  This  time  he  will 
not  come  back !" 

He  went  to  the  window  which  looked  out  on  the  street, 
threw  it  open  with  his  aged  and  palsied  hands,  leaned  out 
more  than  half-way,  while  Basque  and  Nicolette  held  him 
behind,  and  shouted : — 

"Marius !     Marius !     Marius !     Marius !" 

But  Marius  could  no  longer  hear  him.  for  at  that  moment 
he  was  turning  the  corner  of  the  Rue  Saint-Louis. 

The  octogenarian  raised  his  hands  to  his  temples  two  or 
three  times  with  an  expression  of  anguish,  recoiled  tottering, 
and  fell  back  into  an  arm-chair,  pulseless,  voiceless,  tearless, 
with  quivering  head  and  lips  which  moved  with  a  stupid  air, 
with  nothing  in  his  eyes  and  nothing  any  longer  in  his  heart 
except  a  gloomy  and  profound  something  which  resembled 
night. 


BOOK  NINTH.— WHITHER  ARE  THEY  GOING? 
CHAPTER   I 

JEAN    VALJEAN 

THAT  same  day,  towards  four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  Jean 
Valjean  was  sitting  alone  on  the  back  side  of  one  of  the  most 
solitary  slopes  in  the  Champ-de-Mars.  Either  from  prudence, 
or  from  a  desire  to  meditate,  or  simply  in  consequence  of  one 
of  those  insensible  changes  of  habit  which  gradually  introduce 
themselves  into  the  existence  of  every  one,  he  now  rarely  went 
out  with  Cosette.  He  had  on  his  workman's  waistcoat,  and 
trousers  of  gray  linen ;  and  his  long-visored  cap  concealed  his 
countenance. 

He  was  calm  and  happy  now  beside  Cosette;  that  which  had, 
for  a  time,  alarmed  and  troubled  him  had  been  dissipated ;  but 
for  the  last  week  or  two,  anxieties  of  another  nature  had  come 
up.  One  day,  while  walking  on  the  boulevard,  he  had  caught 
sight  of  Thenardier;  thanks  to  his  disguise,  Thenardier  had 
not  recognized  him ;  but  since  that  day.  Jean  Valjean  had 
seen  him  repeatedly,  and  he  was  now  certain  that  Thenardier 
was  prowling  about  in  their  neighborhood. 

This  had  been  sufficient  to  make  him  come  to  a  decision. 

Moreover,  Paris  was  not  tranquil:  political  troubles  pre- 
sented this  inconvenient  feature,  for  any  one  who  had  any- 
thing to  conceal  in  his  life,  that  the  police  had  grown  very 
uneasy  and  very  suspicious,  and  that  while  seeking  to  ferret 
out  a  man  like  Pepin  or  Morey,  they  might  very  readily  dis- 
cover a  man  like  Jean  Valjean. 

Jean  Valjean  had  made  up  his  mind  to  quit  Paris,  and  even 
France,  and  go  over  to  England. 


WHITHER   ARE    THEY    OO/.VGf  257 

He  had  warned  Cosette.  He  wished  to  set  out  before  the 
end  of  the  week. 

He  had  seated  himself  on  the  slope  in  the  Champ-de-Marg, 
turning  over  all  sorts  of  thoughts  in  his  mind, — Thenardier, 
the  police,  the  journey,  and  the  difficulty  of  procuring  a  pass- 
port. 

He  was  troubled  from  all  these  points  of  view. 

Last  of  all,  an  inexplicable  circumstance  which  had  just 
attracted  his  attention,  and  from  which  he  had  not  yet 
recovered,  had  added  to  his  state  of  alarm. 

On  the  morning  of  that  very  day,  when  he  alone  of  the 
household  was  stirring,  while  strolling  in  the  garden  before 
Cosette's  shutters  were  open,  he  had  suddenly  perceived  on 
the  wall,  the  following  line,  engraved,  probably  with  a  nail : — 

10  Rue   do  la    Verrerie. 

This  was  perfectly  fresh,  the  grooves  in  the  ancient  black 
mortar  were  white,  a  tuft  of  nettles  at  the  foot  of  the  wall  was 
powdered  with  the  fine,  fresh  plaster. 

This  had  probably  been  written  on  the  preceding  night. 

What  was  this  ?  A  signal  for  others  ?  A  warning  for  him- 
self? 

In  any  case,  it  was  evident  that  the  garden  had  been 
violated,  and  that  strangers  had  made  their  way  into  it. 

He  recalled  the  odd  incidents  which  had  already  alarmed 
the  household. 

His  mind  was  now  filling  in  this  canvas. 

He  took  good  care  not  to  speak  to  Cosette  of  the  line 
written  on  the  wall,  for  fear  of  alarming  her. 

In  the  midst  of  his  preoccupations,  he  perceived,  from  a 
shadow  cast  by  the  sun,  that  some  one  had  halted  on  the  crest 
of  the  slope  immediately  behind  him. 

He  was  on  the  point  of  turning  round,  when  a  paper  folded 
in  four  fell  upon  his  knees  as  though  a  hand  had  dropped  it 
over  his  head. 

He  took  the  paper,  unfolded  it,  and  read  these  words 
written  in  large  characters,  with  a  pencil: — 

"MO VI-:  AWAY   FROM  YOUR  HOUSE." 


258  SAINT-DENIS 

Jean  Yaljoan  sprang  hastily  to  his  feet ;  there  was  no  one  on 
the  slope ;  he  gazed  all  around  him  and  perceived  a  creature 
larger  than  a  child,  not  so  large  as  a  man,  clad  in  a  gray  blouse 
and  trousers  of  dust-colored  cotton  velvet,  who  was  jumping 
over  the  parapet  and  who  slipped  into  the  moat  of  the  Champ- 
de-Mars. 

Jean  Valjean  returned  home  at  once,  in  a  very  thoughtful 
mood. 


CHAPTER  II 

MARIU8 

MARIUS  had  left  M.  Gillenormand  in  despair.  He  had 
entered  the  house  with  very  little  hope,  and  quitted  it  with 
immense  despair. 

However,  and  those  who  have  observed  the  depths  of  the 
human  heart  will  understand  this,  the  officer,  the  lancer,  the 
ninny,  Cousin  Theodule,  had  left  no  trace  in  his  mind.  Not 
the  slightest.  The  dramatic  poet  might,  apparently,  expect 
some  complications  from  this  revelation  made  point-blank  by 
the  grandfather  to  the  grandson.  But  what  the  drama  would 
gain  thereby,  truth  would  lose.  Marius  was  at  an  age  when 
one  believes  nothing  in  the  line  of  evil ;  later  on  comes  the 
age  when  one  believes  everything.  Suspicions  are  nothing  else 
than  wrinkles.  Early  youth  has  none  of  them.  That  which 
overwhelmed  Othello  glides  innocuous  over  Candide.  Suspect 
Cosette  !  There  are  hosts  of  crimes  which  Marius  could  sooner 
have  committed. 

He  began  to  wander  about  the  streets,  the  resource  of  those 
who  suffer.  He  thought  of  nothing,  so  far  as  he  could  after- 
wards remember.  At  two  o'clock  in  the  morning  he  returned 
to  Courfeyrac's  quarters  and  flung  himself,  without  un- 
dressing, on  his  mattress.  The  sun  was  shining  brightly  when 
he  sank  into  that  frightful  leaden  slumber  which  permits 
ideas  to  go  and  come  in  the  brain.  When  he  awoke,  he  saw 


WHITHER   ARE    THEY    GOINQT  259 

Courfeyrac,  Enjolras,  Fcuilly,  and  Combeferre  standing  in  the 
room  with  their  hats  on  and  all  ready  to  go  out. 

Courfeyrac  said  to  him: — 

"Are  you  coming  to  General  Lamarque's  funeral?" 

It  seemed  to  him  that  Courfeyrac  was  speaking  Chinese. 

He  went  out  some  time  after  them.  He  put  in  his  pocket 
the  pistols  which  .1  avert  had  given  him  at  the  time  of  the 
adventure  on  the  3d  of  February,  and  which  had  remained  in 
his  hands.  These  pistols  were  still  loaded.  It  would  be  diffi- 
cult to  say  what  vague  thought  he  had  in  his  mind  when  he 
took  them  with  him. 

All  day  long  he  prowled  about,  without  knowing  where  he 
was  going;  it  rained  at  times,  he  did  not  perceive  it;  for  his 
dinner,  he  purchased  a  penny  roll  at  a  baker's,  put  it  in  his 
pocket  and  forgot  it.  It  appears  that  he  took  a  bath  in  the 
Seine  without  being  aware  of  it.  There  are  moments  when  a 
man  has  a  furnace  within  his  skull.  Marius  was  passing 
through  one  of  those  moments.  He  no  longer  hoped  for  any- 
thing; this  step  he  had  taken  since  the  preceding  evening.  He 
waited  for  night  with  feverish  impatience,  he  had  but  one  idea 
clearly  before  his  mind; — this  was,  that  at  nine  o'clock 
he  should  see  Cosette.  This  last  happiness  now  consti- 
tuted his  whole  future;  after  that,  gloom.  At  intervals, 
as  he  roamed  through  the  most  deserted  boulevards,  it 
seemed  to  him  that  he  heard  strange  noises  in  Paris.  He 
thrust  his  head  out  of  his  revery  and  said :  "Is  there  fighting 
on  hand?" 

At  nightfall,  at  nine  o'clock  precisely,  as  he  had  promsied 
Cosette,  he  was  in  the  Rue  Plumet.  When  he  approached  tlv 
grating  he  forgot  everything.  It  was  forty-eight  hours  since 
he  had  seen  Cosette;  he  was  about  to  behold  her  once  more; 
every  other  thought  was  effaced,  and  he  felt  only  a  profound 
and  unheard-of  joy.  Those  minutes  in  which  one  lives  cen- 
turies always  have  this  sovereign  and  wonderful  property,  that 
at  the  moment  when  they  are  passing  they  fill  the  heart  com- 
pletely. 

Marius  displaced  the  bar,  and  rushed  headlong  into  the 


260  8A1XT-DEXI8 

garden.  Cosctte  was  not  at  the  spot  where  she  ordinarily 
waited  for  him.  He  traversed  the  thicket,  and  approached 
the  recess  near  the  flight  of  steps:  "She  is  waiting  for  me 
there,"  said  he.  Cosette  was  not  there.  He  raised  his  eyes, 
and  saw  that  the  shutters  of  the  house  were  closed.  He  made 
the  tour  of  the  garden,  the  garden  was  deserted.  Then  he 
returned  to  the  house,  and,  rendered  senseless  by  love,  intoxi- 
cated, terrified,  exasperated  with  grief  and  uneasiness,  like  a 
master  who  returns  home  at  an  evil  hour,  he  tapped  on  the 
shutters.  He  knocked  and  knocked  again,  at  the  risk  of  seeing 
the  window  open,  and  her  father's  gloomy  face  make  its  ap- 
pearance, and  demand:  "What  do  you  want?"  This  was 
nothining  in  comparison  with  what  he  dimly  caught  a  glimpse 
of.  When  he  had  rapped,  he  lifted  up  his  voice  and  called 
Cosette. — "Cosette  !"  he  cried ;  "Cosette  !"  he  repeated  impe- 
riously. There  was  no  reply.  All  was  over.  Xo  one  in  the 
garden ;  no  one  in  the  house. 

Marius  fixed  his  despairing  eyes  on  that  dismal  house,  which 
was  as  black  and  as  silent  as  a  tomb  and  far  more  empty.  He 
gazed  at  the  stone  seat  on  which  he  had  passed  so  many  ador- 
able hours  with  Cosette.  Then  he  seated  himself  on  the  flight 
of  steps,  his  heart  filled  with  sweetness  and  resolution,  he 
blessed  his  love  in  the  depths  of  his  thought,  and  he  said  to 
himself  that,  since  Cosette  was  gone,  all  that  there  was  left 
for  him  was  to  die. 

All  at  once  he  heard  a  voice  which  seemed  to  proceed  from 
the  street,  and  which  was  calling  to  him  through  the 
trees : — 

"Mr.  Marius !" 

He  started  to  his  feet. 

"Hey?"  said  he. 

"Mr.  Marius,  are  you  there  ?" 

"Yes." 

"Mr.  Marius,"  went  on  the  voice,  "your  friends  are  waiting 
for  you  at  the  barricade  of  the  Rue  de  la  Chanvrerie." 

This  voice  was  not  wholly  unfamiliar  to  him.  It  resembled 
the  hoarse,  rough  voice  of  fiponine.  Marius  hastened  to  the 


WIIITIJER   ARE   THEY   00/.VGf  2C1 

gate,  thrust  aside  the  movable  bar,  passed  his  head  through  the 
aperture,  and  saw  some  one  who  appeared  to  him  to  be  a 
young  man,  disappearing  at  a  run  into  the  gloom. 


CHAPTER    III 

M.  MABEUP 

JEAN  VALJEAN'S  purse  was  of  no  use  to  M.  Mabeuf.  M. 
Mabeuf,  in  his  venerable,  infantile  austerity,  had  not  accepted 
the  gift  of  the  stars;  he  had  not  admitted  that  a  star  could 
coin  itself  into  louis  d'or.  He  had  not  divined  that  what  had 
fallen  from  heaven  had  come  from  Gavroche.  He  had  taken 
the  purse  to  the  police  commissioner  of  the  quarter,  as  a  lost 
article  placed  by  the  finder  at  the  disposal  of  claimants.  The 
purse  was  actually  lost.  It  is  unnecessary  to  say  that  no  one 
claimed  it,  and  that  it  did  not  succor  M.  Mabeuf. 

Moreover,  M.  Mabeuf  had  continued  his  downward  course. 

His  experiments  on  indigo  had  been  no  more  successful  in 
the  Jardin  des  Plantes  than  in  his  garden  at  Austerlitz.  The 
year  before  he  had  owed  his  housekeeper's  wages ;  now,  as 
we  have  seen,  he  owed  three  quarters  of  his  rent.  The  pawn- 
shop had  sold  the  plates  of  his  Flora  after  the  expiration  of 
thirteen  months.  Some  coppersmith  had  made  stewpans  of 
them.  His  copper  plates  gone,  and  being  unable  to  complete 
even  the  incomplete  copies  of  his  Flora  which  were  in  his  pos- 
session, he  had  disposed  of  the  text,  at  a  miserable  price,  as 
waste  paper,  to  a  second-hand  bookseller.  Nothing  now  re- 
mained to  him  of  his  life's  work.  He  set  to  work  to  eat  up  the 
money  for  these  copies.  When  he  saw  that  this  wretched  re- 
source was  becoming  exhausted,  he  gave  up  his  garden  and 
allowed  it  to  run  to  waste.  Before  this,  a  long  time  before, 
he  had  given  up  his  two  eggs  and  the  morsel  of  beef  which  he 
ate  from  time  to  time.  He  dined  on  bread  and  potatoes.  He 
had  sold  the  last  of  his  furniture,  then  all  duplicates  of  his 
bedding,  his  clothing  and  his  blankets,  then  his  herbariums 


262  8AINT-DEVIS 

and  prints ;  but  he  still  retained  his  most  precious  books,  many 
of  which  were  of  the  greatest  rarit}r,  among  others,  Left  Quad- 
rins  Historiques  de  la  Bible,  edition  of  1560;  La  Concordance 
des  Bibles,  by  Pierre  de  Besse;  Les  Marguerites  de  la  Marguer- 
ite, of  Jean  de  La  Hayc,  with  a  dedication  to  the  Queen  of 
Navarre;  the  book  de  la  Charge  et  Dignite  de  I'Ambassadeur, 
by  the  Sieur  de  Villiers  Hotman;  a  Florilegiurn  Kabbinicum 
of  1644 ;  a  Tibullus  of  1567,  with  this  magnificent  inscription : 
Venetiis,  in  cedibus  Manutianis;  and  lastly,  a  Diogenes 
Laertius,  printed  at  Lyons  in  1644,  which  contained  the 
famous  variant  of  the  manuscript  411,  thirteenth  century,  of 
the  Vatican,  and  those  of  the  two  manuscripts  of  Venice,  393 
and  394,  consulted  with  such  fruitful  results  by  Henri 
Estienne,  and  all  the  passages  in  Doric  dialect  which  are  only 
found  in  the  celebrated  manuscript  of  the  twelfth  century 
belonging  to  the  Naples  Library.  M.  Mabcuf  never  had  any 
fire  in  his  chamber,  and  went  to  bed  at  sundown,  in  order  not 
to  consume  any  candles.  It  seemed  as  though  he  had  no  longer 
any  neighbors :  people  avoided  him  when  he  went  out ;  he  per- 
ceived the  fact.  The  wretchedness  of  a  child  interests  a 
mother,  the  wretchedness  of  a  young  man  interests  a  young 
girl,  the  wretchedness  of  an  old  man  interests  no  one.  It  is, 
of  all  distresses,  the  coldest.  Still,  Father  Mabeuf  had  not 
entirely  lost  his  childlike  serenity.  His  eyes  acquired  some 
vivacity  when  they  rested  on  his  books,  and  he  smiled  when  he 
gazed  at  the  Diogenes  Laertius,  which  was  a  unique  copy.  His 
bookcase  with  glass  doors  was  the  only  piece  of  furniture  which 
he  had  kept  beyond  what  was  strictly  indispensable. 

One  day,  Mother  Plutarque  said  to  him : — 

"I  have  no  money  to  buy  any  dinner." 

What  she  called  dinner  was  a  loaf  of  bread  and  four  or  five 
potatoes. 

"On  credit?"  suggested  M.  Mabeuf. 

"You  know  well  that  people  refuse  me." 

M.  Mabeuf  opened  his  bookcase,  took  a  long  look  at  all  his 
books,  one  after  another,  as  a  father  obliged  to  decimate  his 
children  would  gaze  upon  them  before  making  a  choice,  then 


WHITHER   ARE    THEY    GOING?  263 

seized  one  hastily,  put  it  in  under  his  arm  and  went  out.  He 
returned  two  hours  later,  without  anything  under  his  arm, 
laid  thirty  sous  on  the  table,  and  said : — 

"You  will  get  something  for  dinner." 

From  that  moment  forth,  Mother  Plutarque  saw  a  sombre 
veil,  which  was  never  more  lifted,  descend  over  the  old  man's 
candid  face. 

On  the  following  day,  on  the  day  after,  and  on  the  day  after 
that,  it  had  to  be  done  again. 

M.  Mabeuf  went  out  with  a  book  and  returned  with  a  coin. 
As  the  second-hand  dealers  perceived  that  he  was  forced  to 
sell,  they  purchased  of  him  for  twenty  sous  that  for  which  he 
had  paid  twenty  francs,  sometimes  at  those  very  shops.  Vol- 
ume by  volume,  the  whole  library  went  the  same  road.  He 
said  at  times :  "But  I  am  eighty;"  as  though  he  cherished  some 
secret  hope  that  he  should  arrive  at  the  end  of  his  days  before 
reaching  the  end  of  h!.-  books.  His  melancholy  increased. 
Once,  however,  he  had  a  pleasure.  He  had  gone  out  with  a 
liobert  Estienne,  which  he  had  sold  for  thirty-five  sous  under 
the  Quai  Malaquais,  and  he  returned  with  an  Aldus  which  he 
had  bought  for  forty  sous  in  tho  Hue  des  Gres. — "I  owe  five 
sous,"  he  said,  beaming  on  Mother  Plutarque.  That  day  he 
had  no  dinner. 

He  belonged  to  the  Horticultural  Society.  His  destitution 
became  known  there.  The  president  of  the  society  came  to  see 
him,  promised  to  speak  to  the  Minister  of  Agriculture  and 
Commerce  about  him,  and  did  so. — "Why,  what!"  exclaimed 
the  Minister,  "I  should  think  so!  An  old  savant!  a  botanist ! 
an  inoircnsive  man!  Something  must  be  done  for  him  !"  On 
the  following  day,  M.  Mabeuf  received  an  invitation  to  dine 
with  the  Minister.  Trembling  with  joy,  he  showed  the  letter 
to  Mother  Plutarque.  "We  are  saved !"  said  he.  On  the  day 
appointed,  he  went  to  the  Minister's  house.  He  perceived  that 
his  ragged  cravat,  his  long,  square  coat,  and  his  waxed  shoes 
astonished  the  ushers.  No  one  spoke  to  him,  not  even  the 
Minister.  About  ten  o'clock  in  the  evening,  while  he  was  still 
waiting  for  a  word,  he  heard  the  Minister's  wife,  a  beautiful 


264  SAINT-DENIS 

woman  in  a  low-necked  gown  whom  he  had  not  ventured  to 
approach,  inquire :  "Who  is  that  old  gentleman?"  He  returned 
home  on  foot  at  midnight,  in  a  driving  rain-storm.  He  had 
sold  an  Elzevir  to  pay  for  a  carriage  in  which  to  go  thither. 

He  had  acquired  the  habit  of  reading  a  few  pages  in  his 
Diogenes  Laertius  every  night,  before  he  went  to  bed.  He 
knew  enough  Greek  to  enjoy  the  peculiarities  of  the  text  which 
he  owned.  He  had  now  no  other  enjoyment.  Several  weeks 
passed.  All  at  once,  Mother  Plutarque  fell  ill.  There  is  one 
thing  sadder  than  having  no  money  with  which  to  buy  bread 
at  the  baker's,  and  that  is  having  no  money  to  purchase  drugs 
at  the  apothecary's.  One  evening,  the  doctor  had  ordered  a 
very  expensive  potion.  And  the  malady  was  growing  worse; 
a  nurse  was  required.  M.  Mabeuf  opened  his  bookcase ;  there 
was  nothing  there.  The  last  volume  had  taken  its  departure. 
All  that  was  left  to  him  was  Diogenes  Laertius.  He  put  this 
unique  copy  under  his  arm,  and  went  out.  It  was  the  4th  of 
June,  1832;  he  went  to  the  Porte  Saint-Jacques,  to  Royal's 
successor,  and  returned  with  one  hundred  francs.  He  laid  the 
pile  of  five-franc  pieces  on  the  old  serving-woman's  night- 
stand,  and  returned  to  his  chamber  without  saying  a  word. 

On  the  following  morning,  at  dawn,  he  seated  himself  on 
the  overturned  post  in  his  garden,  and  he  could  be  seen  over 
the  top  of  the  hedge,  sitting  the  whole  morning  motionless, 
with  drooping  head,  his  eyes  vaguely  fixed  on  the  withered 
flower-beds.  It  rained  at  intervals;  the  old  man  did  not  seem 
to  perceive  the  fact. 

In  the  afternoon,  extraordinary  noises  broke  out  in  Paris. 
They  resembled  shots  and  the  clamors  of  a  multitude. 

Father  Mabeuf  raised  his  head.  He  saw  a  gardener  passing, 
and  inquired: — 

"What  is  it?" 

The  gardener,  spade  on  back,  replied  in  the  most  uncon- 
cerned tone: — 

"It  is  the  riots." 

"What  riots?" 

"Yes,  they  are  fighting." 


WHITHER   ARE   THEY   GOINGf  265 

"Why  are  they  fighting?" 

"Ah,  good  Heavens !"  ejaculated  the  gardener. 

"In  what  direction?"  went  on  M.  Mabeuf. 

"In  the  neighborhood  of  the  Arsenal." 

Father  Mabeuf  went  to  his  room,  took  his  hat,  mechanically 
sought  for  a  book  to  place  under  his  arm,  found  none,  said : 
"Ah !  truly !"  and  went  off  with  a  bewildered  air. 


BOOK  TENTH.— THE  5TH  OF  JUNE,  1832 
CHAPTER   I 

THE  SURFACE  OF  THE  QUESTION 

OF  what  is  revolt  composed?  Of  nothing  and  of  every- 
thing. Of  an  electricity  disengaged,  little  by  little,  of  a  flame 
suddenly  darting  forth,  of  a  wandering  force,  of  a  passing 
breath.  This  breath  encounters  heads  which  speak,  brains 
which  dream,  souls  which  suffer,  passions  which  burn,  wretch- 
edness which  howls,  and  bears  them  away. 

Whither  ? 

At  random.  Athwart  the  state,  the  laws,  athwart  prosperity 
and  the  insolence  of  others. 

Irritated  convictions,  embittered  enthusiasms,  agitated 
indignations,  instincts  of  war  which  have  been  repressed, 
youthful  courage  which  has  been  exalted,  generous  blindness; 
curiosity,  the  taste  for  change,  the  thirst  for  the  unexpected, 
the  sentiment  which  causes  one  to  take  pleasure  in  reading 
the  posters  for  the  new  play,  and  love,  the  prompter's  whistle, 
at  the  theatre;  the  vague  hatreds,  rancors,  disappointments, 
every  vanity  which  thinks  that  destiny  has  bankrupted  it ; 
discomfort,  empty  dreams,  ambitions  that  are  hedged  about, 
whoever  hopes  for  a  downfall,  some  outcome,  in  short,  at  the 
very  bottom,  the  rabble,  that  mud  which  catches  fire, — such 
are  the  elements  of  revolt.  That  which  is  grandest  and  that 
which  is  basest;  the  beings  who  prowl  outside  of  all  bounds, 
awaiting  an  occasion,  bohemians,  vagrants,  vagabonds  of  the 
cross-roads,  those  who  sleep  at  night  in  a  desert  of  houses 
with  no  other  roof  than  the  cold  clouds  of  heaven,  those  who, 
each  day,  demand  their  bread  from  chance  and  not  from  toil, 


TEE  FIFTH  OF  JUNE,  1832  267 

the  unknown  of  poverty  and  nothingness,  the  bare-armed,  the 
bare-footed,  belong  to  revolt.  Whoever  cherishes  in  his  soul 
a  secret  revolt  against  any  deed  whatever  on  the  part  of  the 
state,  of  life  or  of  fate,  is  ripe  for  riot,  and,  as  soon  as  it  makes 
its  appearance,  he  begins  to  quiver,  and  to  feel  himself  borne 
away  with  the  whirlwind. 

Revolt  is  a  sort  of  waterspout  in  the  social  atmosphere  which 
forms  suddenly  in  certain  conditions  of  temperature,  and 
which,  as  it  eddies  about,  mounts,  descends,  thunders,  tears, 
razes,  crushes,  demolishes,  uproots,  bearing  with  it  great 
natures  and  small,  the  strong  man  and  the  feeble  mind,  the 
tree  trunk  and  the  stalk  of  straw.  Woe  to  him  whom  it  bears 
away  as  well  as  to  him  whom  it  strikes !  It  breaks  the  one 
against  the  other. 

It  communicates  to  those  whom  it  seizes  an  indescribable 
and  extraordinary  power.  It  fills  the  first-comer  with  the 
force  of  events;  it  converts  everything  into  projectiles.  It 
makes  a  cannon-ball  of  a  rough  stone,  and  a  general  of  a 
porter. 

If  we  are  to  believe  certain  oracles  of  crafty  political  views, 
a  little  revolt  is  desirable  from  the  point  of  view  of  power. 
System :  revolt  strengthens  those  governments  which  it  does 
not  overthrow.  It  puts  the  army  to  the  test;  it  consecrates 
the  bourgeoisie,  it  draws  out  the  muscles  of  the  police ;  it 
demonstrates  the  fo'rce  of  the  social  framework.  It  is  an 
exercise  in  gymnastics;  it  is  almost  hygiene.  Power  is  in 
better  health  after  a  revolt,  as  a  man  is  after  a  good  rubbing 
down. 

Revolt,  thirty  years  ago,  was  regarded  from  still  other  points 
of  view. 

There  is  for  everything  a  theory,  which  proclaims  itself 
"good  sense";  Philintus  against  Alcestis;  mediation  offered 
between  the  false  and  the  true ;  explanation,  admonition, 
rather  haughty  extenuation  which,  because  it  is  mingled  with 
blame  and  excuse,  thinks  itself  wisdom,  and  is  often  only 
pedantry.  A  whole  political  school  called  "the  golden  mean" 
has  been  the  outcome  of  this.  As  between  cold  water  and 


26S  SAINT-DENIS 

hot  water,  it  is  the  lukewarm  water  party.  This  school  with 
its  false  depth,  all  on  the  surface,  which  dissects  effects  with- 
out going  back  to  first  causes,  chides  from  its  height  of  a 
demi-science,  the  agitation  of  the  public  square. 

If  we  listen  to  this  school,  "The  riots  which  complicated  the 
affair  of  1830  deprived  that  great  event  of  a  portion  of  its 
purity.  The  Revolution  of  July  had  been  a  fine  popular  gale, 
abruptly  followed  by  blue  sky.  They  made  the  cloudy  sky 
reappear.  They  caused  that  revolution,  at  first  so  remarkable 
for  its  unanimity,  to  degenerate  into  a  quarrel.  In  the  Revo- 
lution of  July,  as  in  all  progress  accomplished  by  fits  and 
starts,  there  had  been  secret  fractures;  these  riots  rendered 
them  perceptible.  It  might  have  been  said :  'Ah !  this  is 
broken.'  After  the  Revolution  of  July,  one  was  sensible  only 
of  deliverance;  after  the  riots,  one  was  conscious  of  a 
catastrophe. 

"All  revolt  closes  the  shops,  depresses  the  funds,  throws  the 
Exchange  into  consternation,  suspends  commerce,  clogs  busi- 
ness, precipitates  failures;  no  more  money,  private  fortunes 
rendered  uneasy,  public  credit  shaken,  industry  disconcerted, 
capital  withdrawing,  work  at  a  discount,  fear  everywhere ; 
counter-shocks  in  every  town.  Hence  gulfs.  It  has  been  cal- 
culated that  the  first  day  of  a  riot  costs  France  twenty 
millions,  the  second  day  forty,  the  third  sixty,  a  three  days' 
uprising  costs  one  hundred  and  twenty  millions,  that  is  to 
Bay,  if  only  the  financial  result  be  taken  into  consideration, 
it  is  equivalent  to  a  disaster,  a  shipwreck  or  a  lost  battle, 
which  should  annihilate  a  fleet  of  sixty  ships  of  the  line. 

"No  doubt,  historically,  uprisings  have  their  beauty ;  the 
war  of  the  pavements  is  no  less  grandiose,  and  no  less  pathetic, 
than  the  war  of  thickets :  in  the  one  there  is  the  soul  of  forests, 
in  the  other  the  heart  of  cities ;  the  one  has  Jean  Chouan,  the 
other  has  a  Jeanne.  Revolts  have  illuminated  with  a  red  glare 
all  the  most  original  points  of  the  Parisian  character,  generos- 
ity, devotion,  stormy  gayety,  students  proving  that  bravery 
forms  part  of  intelligence,  the  National  Guard  invincible, 
bivouacs  of  shopkeepers,  fortresses  of  street  urchins,  contempt 


THE  FIFTH  OF  JUNE,  18St  269 

of  death  on  the  part  of  passers-by.  Schools  and  legions  clashed 
together.  After  all,  between  the  combatants,  there  was  only 
a  difference  of  age;  the  race  is  the  same;  it  is  the  same  stoical 
men  who  died  at  the  age  of  twenty  for  their  ideas,  at  forty 
for  their  families.  The  army,  always  a  sad  thing  in  civil 
wars,  opposed  prudence  to  audacity.  Uprisings,  while  proving 
popular  intrepidity,  also  educated  the  courage  of  the  bour- 
geois. 

"This  is  well.  But  is  all  this  worth  the  bloodshed  ?  And  to 
the  bloodshed  add  the  future  darkness,  progress  compromised, 
uneasiness  among  the  best  men,  honest  liberals  in  despair, 
foreign  absolutism  happy  in  these  wounds  dealt  to  revolution 
by  its  own  hand,  the  vanquished  of  1830  triumphing  and 
saying :  'We  told  you  so !'  Add  Paris  enlarged,  possibly,  but 
France  most  assuredly  diminished.  Add,  for  all  must  needs 
be  told,  the  massacres  which  have  too  often  dishonored  the 
victory  of  order  grown  ferocious  over  liberty  gone  mad.  To 
sum  up  all,  uprisings  have  been  disastrous." 

Thus  speaks  that  approximation  to  wisdom  with  which  the 
bourgeoisie,  that  approximation  to  the  people,  so  willingly  con- 
tents itself. 

For  our  parts,  we  reject  this  word  uprisings  as  too  large, 
and  consequently  as  too  convenient.  We  make  a  distinction 
between  one  popular  movement  and  another  popular  move- 
ment. We  do  not  inquire  whether  an  uprising  costs  as  much 
as  a  battle.  Why  a  battle,  in  the  first  place?  Here  the 
question  of  war  comes  up.  Is  war  less  of  a  scourge  than  an 
uprising  is  of  a  calamity?  And  then,  are  all  uprising?  calami- 
ties? And  what  if  the  revolt  of  July  did  cost  a  hundred  and 
twenty  millions?  The  establishment  of  Philip  V.  in  Spain  cost 
France  two  milliards.  Even  at  the  same  price, we  should  prefer 
the  14th  of  July.  However,  we  reject  these  figures,  which 
appear  to  be  reasons  and  which  are  only  words.  An  uprising 
being  given,  we  examine  it  by  itself.  In  all  that  is  said  by 
the  doctrinarian  objection  above  presented,  there  is  no  ques- 
tion of  anything  but  effect,  we  seek  the  cause. 

We  will  be  explicit. 


270  BAIXT-DENIB 

CHAPTER   II 

THE  ROOT  OF  THE  MATTER 

THERE  is  such  a  thing  as  an  uprising,  and  there  is  such  a 
thing  as  insurrection;  these  are  two  separate  phases  of 
wrath;  one  is  in  the  wrong,  the  other  is  in  the  right.  In 
democratic  states,  the  only  ones  which  are  founded  on  justice, 
it  sometimes  happens  that  the  fraction  usurps ;  then  the  whole 
rises  and  the  necessary  claim  of  its  rights  may  proceed  as 
far  as  resort  to  arms.  In  all  questions  which  result  from 
collective  sovereignty,  the  war  of  the  whole  against  the  frac- 
tion is  insurrection;  the  attack  of  the  fraction  against  the 
whole  is  revolt;  according  as  the  Tuileries  contain  a  king  or 
the  Convention,  they  are  justly  or  unjustly  attacked.  The 
same  cannon,  pointed  against  the  populace,  is  wrong  on  the 
10th  of  August,  and  right  on  the  14th  of  Vendemiaire.  Alike 
in  appearance,  fundamentally  different  in  reality ;  the  Swiss 
defend  the  false,  Bonaparte  defends  the  true.  That  which 
universal  suffrage  has  effected  in  its  liberty  and  in  its  sov- 
ereignty cannot  be  undone  by  the  street.  It  is  the  same  in 
things  pertaining  purely  to  civilization ;  the  instinct  of  the 
masses,  clear-sighted  to-day,  may  be  troubled  to-morrow.  The 
same  fury  legitimate  when  directed  against  Terray  and  absurd 
when  directed  against  Turgot.  The  destruction  of  machines, 
the  pillage  of  warehouses,  the  breaking  of  rails,  the  demolition 
of  docks,  the  false  routes  of  multitudes,  the  refusal  by  the 
people  of  justice  to  progress,  Ramus  assassinated  by  students, 
Rousseau  driven  out  of  Switzerland  and  stoned, — that  is 
revolt.  Israel  against  Moses,  Athens  against  Phocian.  Rome 
against  Cicero, — that  is  an  uprising;  Paris  against  the 
Bastille, — that  is  insurrection.  The  soldiers  against  Alex- 
ander, the  sailors  against  Christopher  Columbus, — this  is  the 
same  revolt;  impious  revolt;  why?  Because  Alexander  is 
doing  for  Asia  with  the  sword  that  which  Christopher 
Columbus  is  doing  for  America  with  the  compass;  Alexander 


THE  FIFTH  OF  JUNE,  1832  271 

like  Columbus,  is  finding  a  world.  These  gifts  of  a  world  to 
civilization  are  such  augmentations  of  light,  that  all  resist- 
ance in  that  case  is  culpable.  Sometimes  the  populace  coun- 
terfeits fidelity  to  itself.  The  masses  are  traitors  to  the 
people.  Is  there,  for  example,  anything  stranger  than  that 
long  and  bloody  protest  of  dealers  in  contraband  salt,  a  legiti- 
mate chronic  revolt,  which,  at  the  decisive  moment,  on  the  day 
of  salvation,  at  the  very  hour  of  popular  victory,  espouses  the 
throne,  turns  into  chouannerie,  and,  from  having  been  an 
insurrection  against,  becomes  an  uprising  for,  sombre  master- 
pieces of  ignorance !  The  contraband  salt  dealer  escapes  the 
royal  gibbets,  and  with  a  rope's  end  round  his  neck,  mounts 
the  white  cockade.  "Death  to  the  salt  duties,"  brings  forth, 
"Long  live  the  King!"  The  assassins  of  Saint-Bartholemy, 
the  cut-throats  of  September,  the  manslaughterers  of  Avignon, 
the  assassins  of  Coligny,  the  assassins  of  Madam  Lamballe, 
the  assassins  of  Brune,  Miquolets,  Verdets,  Cadenettes,  the 
companions  of  Jehu,  the  chevaliers  of  Brassard, — behold  an 
uprising.  La  Vendee  is  a  grand,  catholic  uprising.  The 
sound  of  right  in  movement  is  recognizable,  it  does  not  always 
proceed  from  the  trembling  of  excited  masses;  there  are  mad 
rages,  there  are  cracked  bells,  all  tocsins  do  not  give  out  the 
sound  of  bronze.  The  brawl  of  passions  and  ignorances  is 
quite  another  thing  from  the  shock  of  progress.  Show  me 
in  what  direction  you  are  going.  Rise,  if  you  will,  but  let 
it  be  that  you  may  grow  great.  There  is  no  insurrection 
except  in  a  forward  direction.  Any  other  sort  of  rising  is 
bad ;  every  violent  step  towards  the  rear  is  a  revolt ;  to  retreat 
is  to  commit  a  deed  of  violence  against  the  human  race.  In- 
surrection is  a  fit  of  rage  on  the  part  of  truth ;  the  pavements 
which  the  uprising  disturbs  give  forth  the  spark  of  right. 
These  pavements  bequeath  to  the  uprising  only  their  mud. 
Danton  against  Louis  XIV.  is  insurrection;  Hebert  against 
Danton  is  revolt. 

Hence  it  results  that  if  insurrection  in  given  cases  may  be, 
as  Lafayette  says,  the  most  holy  of  duties,  an  uprising  may  be 
the  most  fatal  of  crimes. 


272  8  Al  NT-DEM  8 

There  is  also  a  difference  in  the  intensity  of  heat;  insur- 
rection is  often  a  volcano,  revolt  is  often  only  a  fire  of  straw. 

Revolt,  as  we  have  said,  is  sometimes  found  among  those  in 
power.  Polignac  is  a  rioter;  Camille  Desmoulins  is  one  of 
the  governing  powers. 

Insurrection  is  sometimes  resurrection. 

The  solution  of  everything  by  universal  suffrage  being  an 
absolutely  modern  fact,  and  all  history  anterior  to  this  fact 
being,  for  the  space  of  four  thousand  years,  filled  with  violated 
right,  and  the  suffering  of  peoples,  each  epoch  of  history 
brings  with  it  that  protest  of  which  it  is  capable.  Under  the 
Caesars,  there  was  no  insurrection,  but  there  was  Juvenal. 

The  facit  indignatio  replaces  the  Gracchi. 

Under  the  Caesars,  there  is  the  exile  to  Syene ;  there  is  also 
the  man  of  the  Annales.  We  do  not  speak  of  the  immense 
exile  of  Patmos  who,  on  his  part  also,  overwhelms  the  real 
world  with  a  protest  in  the  name  of  the  ideal  world,  who  makes 
of  his  vision  an  enormous  satire  and  casts  on  Rome-Xineveh, 
on  Rome-Babylon,  on  Rome-Sodom,  the  flaming  reflection  of 
the  Apocalypse.  John  on  his  rock  is  the  sphinx  on  its 
pedestal ;  we  may  understand  him,  he  is  a  Jew,  and  it  is 
Hebrew;  but  the  man  who  writes  the  Annales  is  of  the  Latin 
race,  let  us  rather  say  he  is  a  Roman. 

As  the  Neros  reign  in  a  black  way,  they  should  be  painted  to 
match.  The  work  of  the  graving-tool  alone  would  be  too  pale ; 
there  must  be  poured  into  the  channel  a  concentrated  prose 
which  bites. 

Despots  count  for  something  in  the  question  of  philosophers. 
A  word  that  is  chained  is  a  terrible  word.  The  writer  doubles 
and  trebles  his  style  when  silence  is  imposed  on  a  nation  by  its 
master.  From  this  silence  there  arises  a  certain  mysterious 
plenitude  which  filters  into  thought  and  there  congeals  into 
bronze.  The  compression  of  history  produces  conciseness  in 
the  historian.  The  granite  solidity  of  such  and  such  a  cele- 
brated prose  is  nothing  but  the  accumulation  effected  by  the 
tyrant. 

Tyrannv  constrains  the  writer  to  conditions  of  diameter 


THE  FIFTH  OF  JUNE,   1832  273 

which  are  augmentations  of  force.  The  Ciceronian  period, 
which  hardly  sufficed  for  Verres,  would  be  blunted  on  Caligula. 
The  less  spread  of  sail  in  the  phrase,  the  more  intensity  in  the 
blow.  Tacitus  thinks  with  all  his  might. 

The  honesty  of  a  great  heart,  condensed  in  justice  and 
truth,  overwhelms  as  with  lightning. 

Be  it  remarked,  in  passing,  that  Tacitus  is  not  historically 
superposed  upon  Caesar.  The  Tiberii  were  reserved  for  him. 
Caesar  and  Tacitus  are  two  successive  phenomena,  a  meeting 
between  whom  seems  to  be  mysteriously  avoided,  by  the  One 
who,  when  lie  sets  the  centuries  on  the  stage,  regulates  the 
entrances  and  the  exits.  Caesar  is  great,  Tacitus  is  great ;  God 
spares  these  two  greatnesses  by  not  allowing  them  to  clash 
with  one  another.  The  guardian  of  justice,  in  striking  Caesar, 
might  strike  too  hard  and  be  unjust.  God  does  not  will  it. 
The  great  wars  of  Africa  and  Spain,  the  pirates  of  Sicily 
destroyed,  civilization  introduced  into  Gaul,  into  Britanny, 
into  Germany, — all  this  glory  covers  the  Rubicon.  There  is 
here  a  sort  of  delicacy  of  the  divine  justice,  hesitating  to  let 
loose  upon  the  illustrious  usurper  the  formidable  historian, 
sparing  Caesar  Tacitus,  and  according  extenuating  circum- 
stances to  genius. 

Certainly,  despotism  remains  despotism,  even  under  the 
despot  of  genius.  There  is  corruption  under  all  illustrious 
tyrants,  but  the  moral  pest  is  still  more  hideous  under 
infamous  tyrants.  In  such  reigns,  nothing  veils  the  shame ; 
and  those  who  make  examples,  Tacitus  as  well  as  Juvenal,  slap 
this  ignominy  which  cannot  reply,  in  the  face,  more  usefully 
in  the  presence  of  all  humanity. 

Rome  smells  worse  under  Vitellius  than  under  Sylla. 
Under  Claudius  and  under  Domitian,  there  is  a  deformity 
of  baseness  corresponding  to  the  repulsiveness  of  the  tyrant. 
The  villany  of  slaves  is  a  direct  product  of  the  despot;  a 
miasma  exhales  from  these  cowering  consciences  wherein  the 
master  is  reflected;  public  powers  are  unclean;  hearts  are 
small;  consciences  arc  dull,  souls  are  like  vermin;  thus  it  is 
under  Caracalla,  thus  it  is  under  Commodus,  thus  it  is  under 


274  SAINT-DENIS 

Heliogabalus,  while,  from  the  Roman  Senate,  under  Caesar, 
there  comes  nothing  but  the  odor  of  the  dung  which  is  peculiar 
to  the  eyries  of  the  eagles. 

Hence  the  advent,  apparently  tardy,  of  the  Tacituses  and 
the  Juvenals;  it  is  in  the  hour  for  evidence,  that  the  demon- 
strator makes  his  appearance. 

But  Juvenal  and  Tacitus,  like  Isaiah  in  Biblical  times,  like 
Dante  in  the  Middle  Ages,  is  man ;  riot  and  insurrection  are 
the  multitude,  which  is  sometimes  right  and  sometimes  wrong. 

In  the  majority  of  cases,  riot  proceeds  from  a  material  fact ; 
insurrection  is  always  a  moral  phenomenon.  Riot  is  Masani- 
ello;  insurrection,  Spartacus.  Insurrection  borders  on  mind, 
riot  on  the  stomach ;  Gaster  grows  irritated ;  but  Caster,  as- 
suredly, is  not  always  in  the  wrong.  In  questions  of  famine, 
riot,  Buzangais,  for  example,  holds  a  true,  pathetic,  and  just 
point  of  departure.  Nevertheless,  it  remains  a  riot.  Why? 
It  is  because,  right  at  bottom,  it  was  wrong  in  form.  Shy 
although  in  the  right,  violent  although  strong,  it  struck  at 
random ;  it  walked  like  a  blind  elephant ;  it  left  behind  it  the 
corpses  of  old  men,  of  women,  and  of  children;  it  wished  the 
blood  of  inoffensive  and  innocent  persons  without  knowing 
why.  The  nourishment  of  the  people  is  a  good  object ;  to  mas- 
sacre them  is  a  bad  means. 

All  armed  protests,  even  the  most  legitimate,  even  that  of 
the  10th  of  August,  even  that  of  July  14th,  begin  with  the 
same  troubles.  Before  the  right  gets  set  free,  there  is  foam 
and  tumult.  In  the  beginning,  the  insurrection  is  a  riot,  just 
as  a  river  is  a  torrent.  Ordinarily  it  ends  in  that  ocean :  revo- 
lution. Sometimes,  however,  coming  from  those  lofty  moun- 
tains which  dominate  the  moral  horizon,  justice,  wisdom,  rea- 
son, right,  formed  of  the  pure  snow  of  the  ideal,  after  a  long 
fall  from  rock  to  rock,  after  having  reflected  the  sky  in  its 
transparency  and  increased  by  a  hundred  affluents  in  the  ma- 
jestic mien  of  triumph,  insurrection  is  suddenly  lost  in  some 
quagmire,  as  the  Rhine  is  in  a  swamp. 

All  this  is  of  the  past,  the  future  is  another  thing.  Uni- 
versal suffrage  has  this  admirable  property,  that  it  dissolves 


THE  FIFTH  OF  JINE,  1832  275 

riot  in  its  inception,  and,  by  giving  the  vote  to  insurrection, 
it  deprives  it  of  its  arms.  The  disappearance  of  wars,  of  street 
wars  as  well  as  of  wars  on  the  frontiers,  such  is  the  inevitable 
progression.  Whatever  To-day  may  be,  To-morrow  will  be 
peace. 

However,  insurrection,  riot,  and  points  of  difference  be- 
tween the  former  and  the  latter, — the  bourgeois,  properly 
speaking,  knows  nothing  of  such  shades.  In  his  mind,  all  is 
sedition,  rebellion  pure  and  simple,  the  revolt  of  the  dog 
against  his  master,  an  attempt  to  bite  whom  must  be  punished 
by  the  chain  and  the  kennel,  barking,  snapping,  until  such  day 
as  the  head  of  the  dog,  suddenly  enlarged,  is  outlined  vaguely 
in  the  gloom  face  to  face  with  the  lion. 

Then  the  bourgeois  shouts :  "Long  live  the  people !" 

This  explanation  given,  what  does  the  movement  of  June, 
1832,  signify,  so  far  as  history  is  concerned?  Is  it  a  revolt? 
Is  it  an  insurrection?" 

It  may  happen  to  us,  in  placing  this  formidable  event  on 
the  stage,  to  say  revolt  now  and  then,  but  merely  to  distinguish 
superficial  facts,  and  always  preserving  the  distinction  between 
revolt,  the  form,  and  insurrection,  the  foundation. 

This  movement  of  1832  had,  in  its  rapid  outbreak  and  in  its 
melancholy  extinction,  so  much  grandeur,  that  even  those  who 
see  in  it  only  an  uprising,  never  refer  to  it  otherwise  than  with 
respect.  For  them,  it  is  like  a  relic  of  1830.  Excited  imagi- 
nations, say  they,  are  not  to  be  calmed  in  a  day.  A  revolution 
cannot  be  cut  off  short.  It  must  needs  undergo  some  undula- 
tions before  it  returns  to  a  state  of  rest,  like  a  mountain  sink- 
ing into  the  plain.  There  are  no  Alps  without  their  Jura,  nor 
Pyrenees  without  the  Asturias. 

This  pathetic  crisis  of  contemporary  history  which  the  mem- 
ory of  Parisians  calls  "the  epoch  of  the  riots,"  is  certainly  a 
characteristic  hour  amid  the  stormy  hours  of  this  century.  A 
last  word,  before  we  enter  on  the  recital. 

The  facts  which  we  are  about  to  relate  belong  to  that  dra- 
matic and  living  reality,  which  the  historian  sometimes  neg- 
lects for  lack  of  time  and  space.  There,  nevertheless,  we  in- 


276  SAINT-DENIS 

sist  upon  it,  is  life,  palpitation,  human  tremor.  Petty  details, 
as  we  think  we  have  already  said,  are,  so  to  speak,  the  foliage 
of  great  events,  and  are  lost  in  the  distance  of  history.  The 
epoch,  surnamed  "of  the  riots,"  abounds  in  details  of  this  na- 
ture. Judicial  inquiries  have  not  revealed,  and  perhaps  have 
not  sounded  the  depths,  for  another  reason  than  history.  We 
shall  therefore  bring  to  light,  among  the  known  and  published 
peculiarities,  things  which  have  not  heretofore  been  known, 
about  facts  over  which  have  passed  the  forgetfulness  of  some, 
and  the  death  of  others.  The  majority  of  the  actors  in  these 
gigantic  scenes  have  disappeared ;  beginning  with  the  very  next 
day  they  held  their  peace;  but  of  what  we  shall  relate,  we  shall 
be  able  to  say:  "We  have  seen  this."  We  alter  a  few  names, 
for  history  relates  and  does  not  inform  against,  but  the  deed 
which  we  shall  paint  will  be  genuine.  In  accordance  with  the 
conditions  of  the  book  which  we  are  now  writing,  we  shall  show 
only  one  side  and  one  episode,  and  certainly,  the  least  known 
at  that,  of  the  two  days,  the  oth  and  the  6th  of  June,  1832,  but 
we  shall  do  it  in  such  wise  that  the  reader  may  catch  a  glimpse, 
beneath  the  gloomy  veil  which  we  are  about  to  lift,  of  the  real 
form  of  this  frightful  public  adventure. 


CHAPTER    III 

A  BURIAL ;  AX  OCCASION  TO  BE  BORN  AGAIN 

IN  the  spring  of  1832,  although  the  cholera  had  been 
chilling  all  minds  for  the  last  three  months  and  had  cast  over 
their  agitation  an  indescribable  and  gloomy  pacification,  Paris 
had  already  long  been  ripe  for  commotion.  As  we  have  said, 
the  great  city  resembles  a  piece  of  artillery ;  when  it  is 
loaded,  it  suffices  for  a  spark  to  fall,  and  the  shot  is  dis- 
charged. In  June,  1832,  the  spark  was  the  death  of  General 
Lamarque. 

Lamarque  was  a  man  of  renown  and  of  action.  lie  had 
had  in  succession,  under  the  Empire  and  under  the  Restora- 


THE  FIFTH  OF  JUNE,  1832  277 

tion,  the  sorts  of  bravery  requisite  for  the  two  epochs,  the 
bravery  of  the  battle-field  and  the  bravery  of  the  tribune.  He 
was  as  eloquent  as  he  had  been  valiant;  a  sword  was  discernible 
in  his  speech.  Like  Foy,  his  predecessor,  after  upholding  the 
command,  he  upheld  liberty;  he  sat  between  the  left  and  the 
extreme  left,  beloved  of  the  people  because  he  accepted  the 
chances  of  the  future,  beloved  of  the  populace  Ixicause  he  had 
served  the  Emperor  well ;  he  was,  in  company  with  Comtes 
Gerard  and  Drouet,  one  of  Napoleon's  marshals  in  petto.  The 
treaties  of  1815  removed  him  as  a  personal  offence.  He  hated 
Wellington  with  a  downright  hatred  which  pleased  the  multi- 
tude; and,  for  seventeen  years,  he  majestically  preserved  the 
sadness  of  Waterloo,  paying  hardly  any  attention  to  inter- 
vening events.  In  his  death  agony,  at  his  last  hour,  he 
clasped  to  his  breast  a  sword  which  had  been  presented  to  him 
by  the  officers  of  the  Hundred  Days.  Napoleon  had  died 
uttering  the  word  army,  Lamarque  uttering  the  word 
country. 

His  death,  which  was  expected,  was  dreaded  by  the  people  as 
a  loss,  and  by  the  government  as  an  occasion.  This  death  was 
an  affliction.  Like  everything  that  is  bitter,  affliction  may  turn 
to  revolt.  This  is  what  took  place. 

On  the  preceding  evening,  and  on  the  morning  of  the  oth  of 
June,  the  day  appointed  for  Lamarque's  burial,  the  Faubourg 
Saint-Antoine,  which  the  procession  was  to  touch  at,  as- 
sumed a  formidable  aspect.  This  tumultuous  network  of 
streets  was  filled  with  rumors.  They  armed  themselves  as  best 
they  might.  Joiners  carried  off  door- weights  of  their  estab- 
lishment "to  break  down  doors."  One  of  them  had  made  him- 
self a  dagger  of  a  stock  ing- weaver's  hook  by  breaking  off  the 
hook  and  sharpening  the  stump.  Another,  who  was  in  a  fever 
"to  attack,"  slept  wholly  dressed  for  three  days.  A  carpenter 
named  Lombier  met  a  comrade,  who  asked  him :  "Whither 
are  you  going?"  "Eh!  well,  I  have  no  weapons."  "What 
then?"  "I'm  going  to  my  timber-yard  to  get  my  compasses." 
"What  for?"  "1  don't  know,"  said  Lombier.  A  certain 
Jacqueline,  an  expeditious  man,  accosted  some  passing  arti- 


278  SAINT-DENIS 

sans :  "Come  here,  you !"  He  treated  them  to  ten  sous'  worth  of 
wine  and  said :  "Have  you  work  ?"  "No."  "Go  to  Filspierre, 
between  the  Barriere  Charonne  and  the  Barriere  Montreuil, 
and  you  will  find  work."  At  Filspierre's  they  found  cartridges 
and  arms.  Certain  well-known  leaders  were  going  the  rounds, 
that  is  to  say,  running  from  one  house  to  another,  to  collect 
their  men.  At  Barthelemy's,  near  the  Barriere  du  Trone,  at 
Capel's,  near  the  Petit-Chapeau,  the  drinkers  accosted  each 
other  with  a  grave  air.  They  were  heard  to  say :  "Have  you 
your  pistol?"  "Under  my  blouse."  "And  you?"  "Under 
my  shirt."  In  the  Rue  Traversiere,  in  front  of  the  Bland 
workshop,  and  in  the  yard  of  the  Maison-Brulee,  in  front  of 
tool-maker  Bernier's,  groups  whispered  together.  Among 
them  was  observed  a  certain  Mavot,  who  never  remained  more 
than  a  week  in  one  shop,  as  the  masters  always  discharged  him 
"because  they  were  obliged  to  dispute  with  him  every  day." 
Mavot  was  killed  on  the  following  day  at  the  barricade  of  the 
Rue  Menilmontant.  Pretot,  who  was  destined  to  perish  also 
in  the  struggle,  seconded  Mavot,  and  to  the  question:  "What 
is  your  object?"  he  replied:  "Insurrection."  Workmen  as- 
sembled at  the  corner  of  the  Rue  de  Bercy,  waited  for  a  cer- 
tain Lemarin,  the  revolutionary  agent  for  the  Faubourg 
Saint-Marceau.  Watchwords  were  exchanged  almost  pub- 
licly. 

On  the  5th  of  June,  accordingly,  a  day  of  mingled  rain  and 
sun,  General  Lamarque's  funeral  procession  traversed  Paris 
with  official  military  pomp,  somewhat  augmented  through  pre- 
caution. Two  battalions,  with  draped  drums  and  reversed 
arms,  ten  thousand  National  Guards,  with  their  swords  at 
their  sides,  escorted  the  coffin.  The  hearse  was  drawn  by 
young  men.  The  officers  of  the  Invalides  came  immediately  be- 
hind it,  bearing  laurel  branches.  Then  came  an  innumerable, 
strange,  agitated  multitude,  the  sectionaries  of  the  Friends  of 
the  People,  the  Law  School,  the  Medical  School,  refugees  of  all 
nationalities,  and  Spanish,  Italian,  German,  and  Polish  flags, 
tri colored  horizontal  banners,  every  possible  sort  of  banner, 
children  waving  green  boughs,  stone-cutters  and  carpenters 


THE  FIFTH  OF  JUNE,  1832  279 

who  were  on  strike  at  the  moment,  printers  who  were  recog- 
nizable by  their  paper  caps,  marching  two  by  two,  three  by 
three,  uttering  cries,  nearly  all  of  them  brandishing  sticks, 
some  brandishing  sabres,  without  order  and  yet  with  a  single 
soul,  now  a  tumultuous  rout,  again  a  column.  Squads  chose 
themselves  leaders;  a  man  armed  with  a  pair  of  pistols  in  full 
view,  seemed  to  pass  the  host  in  review,  and  the  files  separated 
before  him.  On  the  side  alleys  of  the  boulevards,  in  the 
branches  of  the  trees,  on  balconies,  in  windows,  on  the  roofs, 
swarmed  the  heads  of  men,  women,  and  children;  all  eyes 
were  filled  with  anxiety.  An  armed  throng  was  passing,  and  a 
terrified  throng  looked  on. 

The  Government,  on  its  side,  was  taking  observations.  It 
observed  with  its  hand  on  its  sword.  Four  squadrons  of  cara- 
bineers could  be  seen  in  the  Place  Louis  XV.  in  their  saddles, 
with  their  trumpets  at  their  head,  cartridge-boxes  filled  and 
muskets  loaded,  all  in  readiness  to  march ;  in  the  Latin  country 
and  at  the  Jardin  des  Plantes,  the  Municipal  Guard  eche- 
lonned  from  street  to  street ;  at  the  Halle-aux-Vins,  a  squadron 
of  dragoons;  at  the  Greve  half  of  the  12th  Light  Infantry,  the 
other  half  being  at  the  Bastille;  the  Gth  Dragoons  at  the  Ce- 
lestins ;  and  the  courtyard  of  the  Louvre  full  of  artillery.  The 
remainder  of  the  troops  were  confined  to  their  barracks,  with- 
out reckoning  the  regiments  of  the  environs  of  Paris.  Power 
being  uneasy,  held  suspended  over  the  menacing  multitude 
twenty-four  thousand  soldiers  in  the  city  and  thirty  thousand 
in  the  banlieuc. 

Divers  reports  were  in  circulation  in  the  cortege.  Legit- 
imist tricks  were  hinted  at;  they  spoke  of  the  Due  de  Reich- 
stadt,  whom  God  had  marked  out  for  death  at  that  very  mo- 
ment when  the  populace  were  designating  him  for  the  Empire. 
One  personage,  whose  name  has  remained  unknown,  an- 
nounced that  at  a  given  hour  two  overseers  who  had  been  won 
over,  would  throw  open  the  doors  of  a  factory  of  arms  to  the 
people.  That  which  predominated  on  the  uncovered  brows  of 
the  majority  of  those  present  was  enthusiasm  mingled  with 
dejection.  Here  and  there,  also,  in  that  multitude  given  over 


280  BAIJfT-DENIS 

to  such  violent  but  noble  emotions,  there  were  visible  genuine 
visages  of  criminals  and  ignoble  mouths  which  said:  "Let  us 
plunder !"  There  are  certain  agitations  which  stir  up  the  bot- 
toms of  marshes  and  make  clouds  of  mud  rise  through  the 
water.  A  phenomenon  to  which  "well  drilled"  policemen  are 
no  strangers. 

The  procession  proceeded,  with  feverish  slowness,  from  the 
house  of  the  deceased,  by  way  of  the  boulevards  as  far  as  the 
Bastille.  It  rained  from  time  to  time;  the  rain  mattered 
nothing  to  that  throng.  Many  incidents,  the  cofTm  borne 
round  the  Vendome  column,  stones  thrown  at  the  Due  dc  Fitz- 
James,  who  was  seen  on  a  balcony  with  his  hat  on  his  head,  the 
Gallic  cock  torn  from  a  popular  flag  and  dragged  in  the  mire, 
a  policeman  wounded  with  a  blow  from  a  sword  at  the  Porte 
Saint-Martin,  an  officer  of  the  12th  Light  Infantry  saying 
aloud :  "I  am  a  Republican,"  the  Polytechnic  School  coming 
up  unexpectedly  against  orders  to  remain  at  home,  the  shouts 
of:  "Long  live  the  Polytechnique !  Long  live  the  Republic!" 
marked  the  passage  of  the  funeral  train.  At  the  Bastille,  long 
files  of  curious  and  formidable  people  who  descended  from  the 
Faubourg  Saint-Antoine,  effected  a  junction  with  the  proces- 
sion, and  a  certain  terrible  seething  began  to  agitate  the 
throng. 

One  man  was  heard  to  say  to  another:  "Do  you  see  that 
fellow  with  a  red  beard,  he's  the  one  who  will  give  the  word 
when  we  are  to  fire."  It  appears  that  this  red  beard  was  pres- 
ent, at  another  riot,  the  Quenisset  affair,  entrusted  with  this 
same  function. 

The  hearse  passed  the  Bastille,  traversed  the  small  bridge, 
and  reached  the  esplanade  of  the  bridge  of  Austerlitz.  There 
it  halted.  The  crowd,  surveyed  at  that  moment  with  a  bird's- 
eye  view,  would  have  presented  the  aspect  of  a  comet  whose 
head  was  on  the  esplanade  and  whose  tail  spread  out  over  the 
Quai  Bourdon,  covered  the  Bastille,  and  was  prolonged  on  the 
boulevard  as  far  as  the  Porte  Saint-Martin.  A  circle  was 
traced  around  the  hearse.  The  vast  rout  held  their  peace. 
Lafayette  spoke  and  bade  Lamarque  farewell.  This  was  a 


THE  FIFTH   Ob'  JL'NK,  1832  281 

touching  and  august  instant,  all  heads  uncovered,  all  hearts 
beat  high. 

All  at  once,  a  man  on  horseback,  clad  in  black,  made  his 
appearance  in  the  middle  of  the  group  with  a  red  flag,  others 
say,  with  a  pike  surmounted  with  a  red  liberty-cap.  Lafayette 
turned  aside  his  head.  E.xelmans  quitted  the  procession. 

This  red  flag  raised  a  storm,  and  disappeared  in  the  midst 
of  it.  From  the  Boulevard  Bourdon  to  the  bridge  of  Auster- 
litz  one  of  those  clamors  which  resemble  billows  stirred  the 
multitude.  Two  prodigious  shouts  went  up :  "Lamarque  to 
the  Pantheon ! — Lafayette  to  the  Town-hall !"  Some  young 
men,  amid  the  acclamations  of  the  throng,  harnessed  them- 
selves and  began  to  drag  Lamarque  in  the  hearse  across  the 
bridge  of  Austerlitz  and  Lafayette  in  a  hackney-coach  along 
the  Quai  Morland. 

In  the  crowd  which  surrounded  and  cheered  Lafayette,  it 
was  noticed  that  a  German  showed  himself  named  Ludwig 
Snyder,  who  died  a  centenarian  afterwards,  who  had  also  been 
in  the  war  of  1776,  and  who  had  fought  at  Trenton  under 
Washington,  and  at  Brandywine  under  Lafayette. 

In  the  meantime,  the  municipal  cavalry  on  the  left  bank  had 
been  set  in  motion,  and  came  to  bar  the  bridge,  on  the  right 
bank  the  dragoons  emerged  from  the  Celestins  and  deployed 
along  the  Quai  Morland.  The  men  who  were  dragging  Lafay- 
ette suddenly  caught  sight  of  them  at  the  corner  of  the  quay 
and  shouted :  "The  dragoons !"  The  dragoons  advanced  at  a 
walk,  in  silence,  with  their  pistols  in  their  holsters,  their 
swords  in  their  scabbard?,  their  guns  slung  in  their  leather 
sockets,  with  an  air  of  gloomy  expectation. 

They  halted  two  hundred  paces  from  the  little  bridge.  The 
carriage  in  which  sat  Lafayette  advanced  to  them,  their  ranks 
opened  and  allowed  it  to  pass,  and  then  closed  behind  it.  At 
that  moment  the  dragoons  and  the  crowd  touched.  The 
women  fled  in  terror.  What  took  place  during  that  fatal 
minute?  No  one  can  say.  It  is  the  dark  moment  when  two 
clouds  come  together.  Some  declare  that  a  blast  of  trumpets 
sounding  the  charge  was  heard  in  the  direction  of  the  Arsenal, 


282  SAINT-DENIS 

others  that  a  blow  from  a  dagger  was  given  by  a  child  to  a 
dragoon.  The  fact  is,  that  three  shots  were  suddenly  dis- 
charged: the  first  killed  Cholet,  chief  of  the  squadron,  the 
second  killed  an  old  deaf  woman  who  was  in  the  act  of  closing 
her  window,  the  third  singed  the  shoulder  of  an  officer;  a 
woman  screamed :  "They  are  beginning  too  soon !"  and  all  at 
once,  a  squadron  of  dragoons  which  had  remained  in  the 
barracks  up  to  this  time,  was  seen  to  debouch  at  a  gallop 
with  bared  swords,  through  the  Rue  Bassompierre  and  the 
Boulevard  Bourdon,  sweeping  all  before  them. 

Then  all  is  said,  the  tempest  is  loosed,  stones  rain  down,  a 
fusillade  breaks  forth,  many  precipitate  themselves  to  the  bot- 
tom of  the  bank,  and  pass  the  small  arm  of  the  Seine,  now 
filled  in,  the  timber-yards  of  the  Isle  Louviers,  that  vast 
citadel  ready  to  hand,  bristle  with  combatants,  stakes  are  torn 
up,  pistol-shots  fired,  a  barricade  begun,  the  young  men  who 
are  thrust  back  pass  the  Austerlitz  bridge  with  the  hearse  at 
a  run.  and  the  municipal  guard,  the  carabineers  rush  up,  the 
dragoons  ply  their  swords,  the  crowd  disperses  in  all  direc- 
tions, a  rumor  of  war  flies  to  all  four  quarters  of  Paris,  men 
shout :  "To  arms  !"  they  run,  tumble  down,  flee,  resist.  Wrath 
spreads  abroad  the  riot  as  wind  spreads  a  fire. 


CHAPTER   IV 

THE  EBULLITIONS  OF  FORMER  DATS 

NOTHING  is  more  extraordinary  than  the  first  breaking  out 
of  a  riot.  Everything  bursts  forth  everywhere  at  once.  Was 
it  foreseen  ?  Yes.  Was  it  prepared  ?  No.  Whence  comes  it  ? 
From  the  pavements.  Whence  falls  it?  From  the  clouds. 
Here  insurrection  assumes  the  character  of  a  plot ;  there  of  an 
improvisation.  The  first  comer  seizes  a  current  of  the  throng 
and  leads  it  whither  he  wills.  A  beginning  full  of  terror,  in 
which  is  mingled  a  sort  of  formidable  gayety.  First  come 
clamors,  the  shops  are  closed,  the  displays  of  the  merchants 


THE  FIFTH  OF  JUNE,  1832  283 

disappear;  then  come  isolated  shots;  people  flee;  blows  from 
gun-stocks  beat  against  portes  cocheres,  servants  can  be  heard 
laughing  in  the  courtyards  of  houses  and  saying:  "There's 
going  to  be  a  row !" 

A  quarter  of  an  hour  had  not  elapsed  when  this  is  what  was 
taking  place  at  twenty  different  spots  in  Paris  at  once. 

In  the  Rue  Sainte-Croix-de-la-Bretonnerie,  twenty  young 
men,  bearded  and  with  long  hair,  entered  a  dram-shop  and 
emerged  a  moment  later,  carrying  a  horizontal  tricolored  flag 
covered  with  crape,  and  having  at  their  head  three  men  armed, 
one  with  a  sword,  one  with  a  gun,  and  the  third  with  a  pike. 

In  the  Rue  des  Nonaindieres,  a  very  well-dressed  bourgeois, 
who  had  a  prominent  belly,  a  sonorous  voice,  a  bald  head,  a 
lofty  brow,  a  black  beard,  and  one  of  these  stiff  mustaches 
which  will  not  lie  flat,  offered  cartridges  publicly  to  passers-by. 

In  the  Rue  Saint-Pierre-Montmartre,  men  with  bare  arms 
carried  about  a  black  flag,  on  which  could  be  read  in  white 
letters  this  inscription :  "Republic  or  Death  !"  In  the  Rue  des 
Jeuneurs.  Rue  du  Cadran,  Rue  Montorgueil,  Rue  Mandar, 
groups  appeared  waving  flags  on  which  could  be  distinguished 
in  gold  letters,  the  word  section  with  a  number.  One  of  these 
flags  was  red  and  blue  with  an  almost  imperceptible  stripe  of 
white  between. 

They  pillaged  a  factory  of  small-arms  on  the  Boulevard 
Saint-Martin,  and  three  armorers'  shops,  the  first  in  the  Rue 
Beaubourg,  the  second  in  the  Rue  Michel-le-Comte,  the  other 
in  the  Rue  du  Temple.  In  a  few  minutes,  the  thousand  hands 
of  the  crowd  had  seized  and  carried  off  two  hundred  and  thirty 
guns,  nearly  all  doubled-barrelled,  sixty-four  swords,  and 
eighty-three  pistols.  In  order  to  provide  more  arms,  one  man 
took  the  gun,  the  other  the  bayonet. 

Opposite  the  Quai  de  la  Greve,  young  men  armed  with 
muskets  installed  themselves  in  the  houses  of  some  women 
for  the  purpose  of  firing.  One  of  them  had  a  flint-lock. 
They  rang,  entered,  and  set  about  making  cartridges.  One 
of  these  women  relates :  "I  did  not  know  what  cartridges 
were;  it  was  my  husband  who  told  me." 


28-i  8AMT-DEN18 

One  cluster  broke  into  a  curiosity  shop  in  the  Rue  des 
Vielles  Haudriettes,  and  seized  yataghans  and  Turkish  arms. 

The  body  of  a  mason  who  had  been  killed  by  a  gun-shot 
lay  in  the  Rue  de  la  Perle. 

And  then,  on  the  right  bank,  the  left  bank,  on  the  quays,  on 
the  boulevards,  in  the  Latin  country,  in  the  quarter  of  the 
Halles,  panting  men,  artisans,  students,  members  of  section? 
read  proclamations  and  shouted :  "To  arms !"  broke  street 
lanterns,  unharnessed  carriages,  unpaved  the  streets,  broke  in 
the  doors  of  houses,  uprooted  trees,  rummaged  cellars,  rolled 
out  hogsheads,  heaped  up  paving-stones,  rough  slabs,  furniture 
and  planks,  and  made  barricades. 

They  forced  the  bourgeois  to  assist  them  in  this.  They 
entered  the  dwellings  of  women,  they  forced  them  to  hand 
over  the  swords  and  guns  of  their  absent  husbands,  and  they 
wrote  on  the  door,  with  whiting:  "The  arms  have  been  de- 
livered"; some  signed  "their  names"  to  receipts  for  the  guns 
and  swords,  and  said :  "Send  for  them  to-morrow  at  the 
Mayor's  office."  They  disarmed  isolated  sentinels  and  Na- 
tional Guardsmen  in  the  streets  on  their  way  to  the  Town- 
hall.  They  tore  the  epaulets  from  officers.  In  the  Rue  du 
Cimitiere-Saint-Nicholas,  an  officer  of  the  National  Guard, 
on  being  pursued  by  a  crowd  armed  with  clubs  and  foils,  took 
refuge  with  difficulty  in  a  house,  whence  he  was  only  able  to 
emerge  at  nightfall  and  in  disguise. 

In  the  Quartier  Saint-Jacques,  the  students  swarmed  out  of 
their  hotels  and  ascended  the  Rue  Saint-Hyacinthe  to  the 
Cafe  du  Progress,  or  descended  to  the  Cafe  des  Sept-Billards. 
in  the  Rue  des  Mathurins.  There,  in  front  of  the  door,  young 
men  mounted  on  the  stone  corner-posts,  distributed  arms. 
They  plundered  the  timber-yard  in  the  Rue  Transnonain  in 
order  to  obtain  material  for  barricades.  On  a  single  point  the 
inhabitants  resisted,  at  the  corner  of  the  Rue  Sainte-Avoye 
and  the  Rue  Simon-Le-Franc,  where  they  destroyed  the  barri- 
cade with  their  own  hands.  At  a  single  point  the  insurgents 
yielded ;  they  abandoned  a  barricade  begun  in  the  Rue  de 
Temple  after  having  fired  on  a  detachment  of  the  National 


THE  FIFTI1  OF  JUNE,  1882  285 

Guard,  and  fled  through  the  Rue  de  la  Corderie.  The  detach- 
ment picked  up  in  the  barricade  a  red  flag,  a  package  of  car- 
tridges, and  three  hundred  pistol-balls.  The  National  Guards- 
men tore  up  the  flag,  and  carried  off  its  tattered  remains  on 

:   the  points  of  their  bayonets. 

All  that  we  are  here  relating  slowly  and  successively  took 
place  simultaneously  at  all  points  of  the  city  in  the  midst  of 

'  a  vast  tumult,  like  a  mass  of  tongues  of  lightning  in  one  clap 
of  thunder.  In  less  than  an  hour,  twenty-seven  barricades 
sprang  out  of  the  earth  in  the  quarter  of  the  Halles  alone. 
In  the  centre  was  that  famous  house  Xo.  50,  which  was  the 
fortress  of  Jeanne  and  her  six  hundred  companions,  and 
which,  flanked  on  the  one  hand  by  a  barricade  at  Saint-Merry, 
and  on  the  other  by  a  barricade  of  the  Rue  Maubuee,  com- 
manded three  streets,  the  Rue  des  Arcis,  the  Rue  Saint-Martin, 
and  the  Rue  Aubry-le-Boucher,  which  it  faced.  The  barri- 
cades at  right  angles  fell  back,  the  one  of  the  Rue  Montor- 
gueil  on  the  Grande-Truanderie,the  other  of  the  Rue  Geoff  roy- 
Langevin  on  the  Rue  Sainte-Avoye.  Without  reckoning 
innumerable  barricades  in  twenty  other  quarters  of  Paris, 
in  the  Marais,  at  Mont-Sainte-Genevieve ;  one  in  the  Rue 
Menilmontant,  where  was  visible  a  porte  cochere  torn  from  its 
hinges ;  another  near  the  little  bridge  of  the  Hotel-Dieu  made 
with  an  "ecossais,"  which  had  been  unharnessed  and  over- 
thrown, three  hundred  paces  from  the  Prefecture  of  Police. 

At  the  barricade  of  the  Rue  des  Menetriers,  a  well-dressed 
man  distributed  money  to  the  workmen.  At  the  barricade  of 
the  Rue  Grenetat,  a  horseman  made  his  appearance  and 
handed  to  the  one  who  seemed  to  be  the  commander  of  the 
barricade  what  had  the  appearance  of  a  roll  of  silver.  "Here," 
said  he,  "this  is  to  pay  expenses,  wine,  et  camera."  A  light- 
haired  young  man.  without  a  cravat,  went  from  barricade  to 
barricade,  carrying  pass-words.  Another,  with  a  naked  sword, 
a  blue  police  cap  on  his  head,  placed  sentinels.  In  the  interior, 
beyond  the  barricades,  the  wine-shops  and  porters'  lodges  were 
converted  into  guard-houses.  Otherwise  the  riot  was  con- 
ducted after  the  most  scientific  military  tactics.  The  narrow, 


2S6  8A1XT-DEXI8 

uneven,  sinuous  streets,  full  of  angles  and  turns,  were  admi- 
rably chosen ;  the  neighborhood  of  the  Halles.  in  particular,  a 
network  of  streets  more  intricate  than  a  forest.  The  Society 
of  the  Friends  of  the  People  had.  it  was  said,  undertaken  to 
direct  the  insurrection  in  the  Quartier  Sainte-Avoye.  A  man 
killed  in  the  Rue  du  Ponceau  who  was  searched  had  on  his 
person  a  plan  of  Paris. 

That  which  had  really  undertaken  the  direction  of  the  up- 
rising was  a  sort  of  strange  impetuosity  which  was  in  the  air. 
The  insurrection  had  abruptly  built  barricades  with  one  hand, 
and  with  the  other  seized  nearly  all  the  posts  of  the  garrison. 
In  less  than  three  hours,  like  a  train  of  powder  catching  fire, 
the  insurgents  had  invaded  and  occupied,  on  the  right  bank, 
the  Arsenal,  the  Mayoralty  of  the  Place  Royale,  the  whole  of 
the  Marais,  the  Popincourt  arms  manufactory,  la  Galiote,  the 
Chateau-d'Eau,  and  all  the  streets  near  the  Halles ;  on  the 
left  bank,  the  barracks  of  the  Veterans.  Sainte-Pelagie,  the 
Place  Maubert,  the  powder  magazine  of  the  Deux-Moulins, 
and  all  the  barriers.  At  five  o'clock  in  the  evening,  they  were 
masters  of  the  Bastille,  of  the  Lingerie,  of  the  Blancs-Man- 
teaux;  their  scouts  had  reached  the  Place  des  Victoires,  and 
menaced  the  Bank,  the  Petits-Peres  barracks,  and  the  Post- 
Office.  A  third  of  Paris  was  in  the  hands  of  the  rioters. 

The  conflict  had  been  begun  on  a  gigantic  scale  at  all  points ; 
and,  as  a  result  of  the  disarming,  domiciliary  visits,  and 
armorers'  shops  hastily  invaded,  was,  that  the  combat  which 
had  begun  with  the  throwing  of  stones  was  continued  with 
gun-shots. 

About  six  o'clock  in  the  evening,  the  Passage  du  Saumon 
became  the  field  of  battle.  The  uprising  was  at  one  end,  the 
troops  were  at  the  other.  They  3red  from  one  gate  to  the 
other.  An  observer,  a  dreamer,  the  author  of  this  book,  who 
had  gone  to  get  a  near  view  of  this  volcano,  found  himself  in 
the  passage  between  the  two  fires.  All  that  he  had  to  pro- 
tect him  from  the  bullets  was  the  swell  of  the  two  half- 
columns  which  separate  the  shops;  he  remained  in  this 
delicate  situation  for  nearly  half  an  hour. 


THE  FIFTH  OF  JUNE,  1882  287 

Meanwhile  the  call  to  arms  was  beaten,  the  National  Guard 
armed  in  haste,  the  legions  emerged  from  the  Mayoralties,  the 
regiments  from  their  barracks.  Opposite  the  passage  de 
PAncre  a  drummer  received  a  blow  from  a  dagger.  Another, 
in  the  Rue  du  Cygne,  was  assailed  by  thirty  young  men  who 
broke  his  instrument,  and  took  away  his  sword.  Another  was 
killed  in  the  Rue  Grenier-Saint-Lazare.  In  the  Rue-Michel- 
le-Comte.  three  officers  fell  dead  one  after  the  other.  Many 
of  the  Municipal  Guards,  on  being  wounded,  in  the  Rue  des 
Lombards,  retreated. 

In  front  of  the  Cour-Batave,  a  detachment  of  National 
Guards  found  a  red  flag  bearing  the  following  inscription: 
Republican  revolution,  No.  127.  Was  this  a  revolution,  in 
fact? 

The  insurrection  had  made  of  the  centre  of  Paris  a  sort  of 
inextricable,  tortuous,  colossal  citadel. 

There  was  the  hearth;  there,  evidently,  was  the  question. 
All  the  rest  was  nothing  but  skirmishes.  The  proof  that  all 
would  be  decided  there  lay  in  the  fact  that  there  was  no  fight- 
ing going  on  there  as  yet. 

In  some  regiments,  the  soldiers  were  uncertain,  which  added 
to  the  fearful  uncertainty  of  the  crisis.  They  recalled  the 
popular  ovation  which  had  greeted  the  neutrality  of  the  53d 
of  the  Line  in  July,  1830.  Two  intrepid  men,  tried  in  great 
wars,  the  Marshal  Lobau  and  General  Bugeaud,  were  in  com- 
mand, Bugeaud  under  Lobau.  Enormous  patrols,  composed 
of  battalions  of  the  Line,  enclosed  in  entire  companies  of  the 
National  Guard,  and  preceded  by  a  commissary  of  police  wear- 
ing his  scarf  of  office,  went  to  reconnoitre  the  streets  in  rebel- 
lion. The  insurgents,  on  their  sidr,  placed  videttes  at  the 
corners  of  all  open  spaces,  and  audaciously  sent  their  patrols 
outside  the  barricades.  Each  side  was  watching  the  other.  The 
Government,  with  an  army  in  its  hand,  hesitated  ;  the  night 
was  almost  upon  them,  and  the  Saint-Merry  tocsin  began  to 
make  itself  heard.  The  Minister  of  War  at  that  time.  Marshal 
Soult,  who  had  seen  Austerlitz,  regarded  this  with  a  gloomy 
air. 


288  8A1XT-DEXI8 

These  old  sailors,  accustomed  to  correct  manoeuvres  and 
having  as  resource  and  guide  only  tactics,  that  compass  of 
battles,  are  utterly  disconcerted  in  the  presence  of  that  im- 
mense foam  which  is  called  public  wrath. 

The  National  Guards  of  the  suburbs  rushed  up  in  haste  and 
disorder.  A  battalion  of  the  12th  Light  came  at  a  run  from 
Saint-Denis,  the  14th  of  the  Line  arrived  from  Courbevoie, 
the  batteries  of  the  Military  School  had  taken  up  their  position 
on  the  Carrousel ;  cannons  were  descending  from  Yincennes. 

Solitude  was  formed  around  the  Tuileries.  Louis  Philippe 
was  perfectly  serene. 

CHAPTER   V 

ORIGINALITY  OF  PARIS 

DURING  the  last  two  years,  as  we  have  said,  Paris  had  wit- 
nessed more  than  one  insurrection.  Nothing  is,  generally, 
more  singularly  calm  than  the  physiognomy  of  Paris  during 
an  uprising  beyond  the  bounds  of  the  rebellious  quarters. 
Paris  very  speedily  accustoms  herself  to  anything. — it  is  only 
a  riot, — and  Paris  has  so  many  affairs  on  hand,  that  she  does 
not  put  herself  out  for  so  small  a  matter.  These  colossal 
cities  alone  can  offer  such  spectacles.  These  immense  enclos- 
ures alone  can  contain  at  the  same  time  civil  war  and  an  odd 
and  indescribable  tranquillity.  Ordinarily,  when  an  insur- 
rection commences,  when  the  shop-keeper  hears  the  drum,  the 
call  to  arms,  the  general  alarm,  he  contents  himself  with  the 
remark : — 

"There  appears  to  be  a  squabble  in  the  Rue  Saint-Martin." 

Or:— 

"In  the  Faubourg  Saint-Antoine." 

Often  he  adds  carelessly : — 

"Or  somewhere  in  that  direction." 

Later  on,  when  the  heart-rending  and  mournful  hubbub  of 
musketry  and  firing  by  platoons  becomes  audible,  the  shop- 
keeper says : — 


THE   FIFTH   OF   JUX13,  183S  289 

"It's  getting  hot !     Hullo,  it's  getting  hot !" 

A  moment  later,  the  riot  approaches  and  gains  in  force,  he 
shuts  up  his  shop  precipitately,  hastily  dons  his  uniform,  that 
is  to  say,  he  places  his  merchandise  in  safety  and  risks  his  own 
person. 

Men  fire  in  a  square,  in  a  passage,  in  a  blind  alley;  they 
take  and  re-take  the  barricade;  blood  flows,  the  grape-shot 
riddles  the  fronts  of  the  houses,  the  balls  kill  people  in  their 
beds,  corpses  encumber  the  streets.  A  few  streets  away,  the 
shock  of  billiard-balls  can  be  heard  in  the  cafes. 

The  theatres  open  their  doors  and  present  vaudevilles;  the 
curious  laugh  and  chat  a  couple  of  paces  distant  from  these 
streets  filled  with  war.  Hackney-carriages  go  their  way;  pas- 
sers-by are  going  to  a  dinner  somewhere  in  town.  Sometimes 
in  the  very  quarter  where  the  fighting  is  going  on. 

In  1831,  a  fusillade  was  stopped  to  allow  a  wedding  party  to 
pass. 

At  the  time  of  the  insurrection  of  1839,  in  the  Rue  Saint- 
Martin,  a  little,  infirm  old  man,  pushing  a  hand-cart  sur- 
mounted by  a  tricolored  rag,  in  which  he  had  carafes  filled 
with  some  sort  of  liquid,  went  and  came  from  barricade  to 
troops  and  from  troops  to  the  barricade,  offering  his  glasses 
of  cocoa  impartially, — now  to  the  Government,  now  to  an- 
archy. 

Nothing  can  be  stranger;  and  this  is  the  peculiar  character 
of  uprisings  in  Paris,  which  cannot  be  found  in  any  other 
capital.  To  this  end,  two  things  are  requisite,  the  size  of  Paris 
and  its  gayety.  The  city  of  Voltaire  and  Napoleon  is  neces- 
sary. 

On  this  occasion,  however,  in  the  resort  to  arms  of  June 
25th,  1832,  the  great  city  felt  something  which  was.  perhaps, 
stronger  than  itself.  It  was  afraid. 

Closed  doors,  windows,  and  shutters  were  to  bo  seen  every- 
where, in  the  most  distant  and  most  "disinterested"  quarters. 
The  courageous  took  to  arms,  the  poltroons  hid.  The  busy  and 
heedless  passer-by  disappeared.  Many  streets  were  empty  at 
four  o'clock  in  the  morning. 


290  SAINT-DENIS 

Alarming  details  were  hawked  about,  fatal  news  was  dis- 
seminated,— that  they  were  masters  of  the  Bank ; — that  there 
were  six  hundred  of  them  in  the  Cloister  of  Saint-Merry  alone, 
entrenched  and  embattled  in  the  church ;  that  the  line  was 
not  to  be  depended  on;  that  Armand  Carrel  had  been  to  see 
Marshal  Clausel  and  that  the  Marshal  had  said:  "Get  a  regi- 
ment first";  that  Lafayette  was  ill,  but  that  he  had  said  to 
them,  nevertheless :  "I  am  with  you.  I  will  follow  you 
wherever  there  is  room  for  a  chair" ;  that  one  must  be  on  one's 
guard ;  that  at  night  there  would  be  people  pillaging  isolated 
dwellings  in  the  deserted  corners  of  Paris  (there  the  imagi- 
nation of  the  police,  that  Anne  Radcliffe  mixed  up  with  the 
Government  was  recognizable)  ;  that  a  battery  had  been  estab- 
lished in  the  Eue  Aubry  le  Boucher ;  that  Lobau  and  Bugeaud 
were  putting  their  heads  together,  and  that,  at  midnight,  or 
at  daybreak  at  latest,  four  columns  would  march  simulta- 
neously on  the  centre  of  the  uprising,  the  first  coming  from  the 
Bastille,  the  second  from  the  Porte  Saint-Martin,  the  third 
from  the  Greve,  the  fourth  from  the  Halles;  that  perhaps, 
also,  the  troops  would  evacuate  Paris  and  withdraw  to  the 
Champ-de-Mars ;  that  no  one  knew  what  would  happen,  but 
that  this  time,  it  certainly  was  serious. 

People  busied  themselves  over  Marshal  Soult's  hesitations. 
Why  did  not  he  attack  at  once  ?  It  is  certain  that  he  was  pro- 
foundly absorbed.  The  old  lion  seemed  to  scent  an  unknown 
monster  in  that  gloom. 

Evening  came,  the  theatres  did  not  open;  the  patrols  cir- 
culated with  an  air  of  irritation;  passers-by  were  searched; 
suspicious  persons  were  arrested.  By  nine  o'clock,  more  than 
eight  hundred  persons  had  been  arrested,  the  Prefecture  of 
Police  was  encumbered  with  them,  so  was  the  Conciergerie,  so 
was  La  Force. 

At  the  Conciergerie  in  particular,  the  long  vault  which  is 
called  the  Rue  de  Paris  was  littered  with  trusses  of  straw 
upon  which  lay  a  heap  of  prisoners,  whom  the  man  of  Lyons, 
Lagrange,  harangued  valiantly.  All  that  stra\v  rustled  by  all 
these  men,  produced  the  sound  of  a  heavy  shower.  Elsewhere 


THE    FIFTH    OF   JUNK,  1832  291 

prisoners  slept  in  the  open  air  in  the  meadows,  piled  on  top  of 
each  other. 

Anxiety  reigned  everywhere,  and  a  certain  tremor  which  was 
not  habitual  with  Paris. 

People  barricaded  themselves  in  their  houses;  wives  and 
mothers  were  uneasy;  nothing  was  to  be  heard  but  this:  "Ah! 
my  God !  He  has  not  come  home !"  There  was  hardly  even  the 
distant  rumble  of  a  vehicle  to  be  heard. 

People  listened  on  their  thresholds,  to  the  rumors,  the 
shouts,  the  tumult,  the  dull  and  indistinct  sounds,  to  the 
things  that  were  said:  "It  is  cavalry,"  or:  "Those  are  the 
caissons  galloping,"  to  the  trumpets,  the  drums,  the  firing, 
and,  above  all,  to  that  lamentable  alarm  peal  from  Saint- 
Merry. 

They  waited  for  the  first  cannon-shot.  Men  sprang  up  at 
the  corners  of  the  streets  and  disappeared,  shouting:  "Go 
home !"  And  people  made  haste  to  bolt  their  doors.  They 
said :  "How  will  all  this  end  ?"  From  moment  to  moment, 
in  proportion  as  the  darkness  descended,  Paris  seemed  to  take 
on  a  more  mournful  hue  from  the  formidable  flaming  of  the 
revolt. 


BOOK  ELEVENTH.  —  THE  ATOM  FRATERNIZES 
WITH  THE  HURRICANE 


CHAPTER  I 

SOME  EXPLANATIONS  WITH  REGARD  TO  THE  ORIGIN  OF  GAV- 
ROCHE'S  POETRY.  THE  INFLUENCE  OF  AN  ACADEMICIAN  ON 
THIS  POETRY 

AT  the  instant  when  the  insurrection,  arising  from  the  shock 
of  the  populace  and  the  military  in  front  of  the  Arsenal, 
started  a  movement  in  advance  and  towards  the  rear  in  the 
multitude  which  was  following  the  hearse  and  which,  through 
the  whole  length  of  the  boulevards,  weighed,  so  to  speak,  on 
the  head  of  the  procession,  there  arose  a  frightful  ebb.  The 
rout  was  shaken,  their  ranks  were  broken,  all  ran,  fled,  made 
their  escape,  some  with  shouts  of  attack,  others  with  the  pallor 
of  flight.  The  great  river  which  covered  the  boulevards  di- 
vided in  a  twinkling,  overflowed  to  right  and  left,  and  spread 
in  torrents  over  two  hundred  streets  at  once  with  the  roar  of  a 
sewer  that  has  broken  loose. 

At  that  moment,  a  ragged  child  who  was  coming  down 
through  the  Rue  Menilmontant,  holding  in  his  hand  a  branch 
of  blossoming  laburnum  which  he  had  just  plucked  on  the 
heights  of  Belleville,  caught  sight  of  an  old  holster-pistol  in 
the  show-window  of  a  bric-a-brac  merchant's  shop. 

"Mother  What's-your-name,  I'm  going  to  borrow  your  ma- 
chine." 

And  off  he  ran  with  the  pistol. 

Two  minutes  later,  a  flood  of  frightened  bourgeois  who  were 


T//A'  ATOM  AND  THE  HVRRWAXE  293 

fleeing  through  the  Rue  Amelot  and  the  Rue  Basse,  encoun- 
tered the  lad  brandishing  his  pistol  and  singing: — 

La  nuit  on   ne  voit  rien, 
Lc  jour  on  voit  tres  bien, 
D'un  o"crit  apocryphe 
IvO  bourgeois   nVhouriffe, 
Pratique/  la  vertu, 
Tutu,  chapeau  pointu!1 

It  was  little  Gavroche  on  his  way  to  the  wars. 

On  the  boulevard  he  noticed  that  the  pistol  had  no  trigger. 

Who  was  the  author  of  that  couplet  which  served  to  punctu- 
ate his  march,  and  of  all  the  other  songs  which  he  was  fond 
of  singing  on  occasion?  We  know  not.  Who  does  know? 
Himself,  perhaps.  However,  Gavroche  was  well  up  in  all  the 
popular  tunes  in  circulation,  and  he  mingled  with  them  his 
own  chirpings.  An  observing  urchin  and  a  rogue,  he  made  a 
potpourri  of  the  voices  of  nature  and  the  voices  of  Paris.  He 
combined  the  repertory  of  the  birds  with  the  repertory  of  the 
workshops.  He  was  acquainted  with  thieves,  a  tribe  contig- 
uous to  his  own.  He  had,  it  appears,  been  for  three  months 
apprenticed  to  a  printer.  He  had  one  day  executed  a  commis- 
sion for  M.  Baour-Lormian,  one  of  the  Forty.  Gavroche  was 
a  gamin  of  letters. 

Moreover,  Gavroche  had  no  suspicion  of  the  fact  that  when 
he  had  offered  the  hospitality  of  his  elephant  to  two  brats  on 
that  villanously  rainy  night,  it  was  to  his  own  brothers  that 
he  had  played  the  part  of  Providence.  His  brothers  in  the 
evening,  his  father  in  the  morning;  that  is  what  his  night  had 
been  like.  On  quitting  the  Rue  des  Ballets  at  daybreak,  he  had 
returned  in  haste  to  the  elephant,  had  artistically  extracted 
from  it  the  two  brats,  had  shared  with  them  some  sort  of 
breakfast  which  he  had  invented,  and  had  then  gone  away, 
confiding  them  to  that  good  mother,  the  street,  who  had 
brought  him  up,  almost  entirely.  On  leaving  them,  he  had 
appointed  to  meet  them  at  the  same  spot  in  the  evening,  and 

'At  night  one  sees  nothing,  hy  day  one  sees  very  well;  the  bourgeois 
gets  flurried  over  an  apocryphal  scrawl,  practice  virtue,  tutu, 
pointed  hat! 


294  SAINT-DENIS 

had  left  them  this  discourse  by  way  of  a  farewell :  "I  break  a 
cane,  otherwise  expressed,  I  cut  my  stick,  or,  as  they  say  at  the 
court,  I  file  off.  If  you  don't  find  papa  and  mamma,  young 
'uns,  come  back  here  this  evening.  I'll  scramble  you  up  some 
supper,  and  I'll  give  you  a  shakedown."  The  two  children, 
picked  up  by  some  policeman  and  placed  in  the  refuge,  or 
stolen  by  some  mountebank,  or  having  simply  strayed  off  in 
that  immense  Chinese  puzzle  of  a  Paris,  did  not  return.  The 
lowest  depths  of  the  actual  social  world  are  full  of  these  lost 
traces.  Gavroche  did  not  see  them  again.  Ten  or  twelve 
weeks  had  elapsed  since  that  night.  More  than  once  he  had 
scratched  the  back  of  his  head  and  said :  "Where  the  devil 
are  my  two  children?" 

In  the  meantime,  he  had  arrived,  pistol  in  hand,  in  the  Rue 
du  Pont-aux-Choux.  lie  noticed  that  there  was  but  one  shop 
open  in  that  street,  and,  a  matter  worthy  of  reflection,  that 
was  a  pastry-cook's  shop.  This  presented  a  providential  occa- 
sion to  eat  another  apple-turnover  before  entering  the 
unknown.  Gavroche  halted,  fumbled  in  his  fob,  turned  his 
pocket  inside  out,  found  nothing,  not  even  a  sou,  and  began 
to  shout :  "Help  !" 

It  is  hard  to  miss  the  last  cake. 

Nevertheless,  Gavroche  pursued  his  way. 

Two  minutes  later  he  was  in  the  Rue  Saint-Louis.  While 
traversing  the  Rue  du  Parc-Royal,  he  felt  called  upon  to  make 
good  the  loss  of  the  apple-turnover  which  had  been  impossible, 
and  he  indulged  himself  in  the  immense  delight  of  tearing 
down  the  theatre  posters  in  broad  daylight. 

A  little  further  on,  on  catching  sight  of  a  group  of  com- 
fortable-looking persons,  who  seemed  to  be  landed  proprietors, 
he  shrugged  his  shoulders  and  spit  out  at  random  before  him 
this  mouthful  of  philosophical  bile  as  they  passed : 

"How  fat  those  moneyed  men  are !  They're  drunk  !  They 
just  wallow  in  good  dinners.  Ask  'em  what  they  do  with  their 
money.  They  don't  know.  They  eat  it,  that's  what  they  do ! 
As  much  as  their  bellies  will  hold." 


THE  ATOM  AND  TI1E  UURKWANE  205 

CHAPTER    II 

OAVROCIIE  ON  THE  MARCH 

THE  brandishing  of  a  triggerless  pistol,  grasped  in  one's 
hand  in  the  open  street,  is  so  much  of  a  public  function  that 
Gavroche  felt  his  fervor  increasing  with  every  moment.  Amid 
the  scraps  of  the  Marseillaise  which  he  was  singing,  he 
shouted : — 

"All  goes  well.  I  suffer  a  great  deal  in  my  left  paw,  I'm  all 
broken  up  with  rheumatism,  but  I'm  satisfied,  citizens.  All 
that  the  bourgeois  have  to  do  is  to  bear  themselves  well,  I'll 
sneeze  them  out  subversive  couplets.  What  are  the  police 
spies?  Dogs.  And  I'd  just  like  to  have  one  of  them  at  the 
end  of  my  pistol.  I'm  just  from  the  boulevard,  my  friends. 
It's  getting  hot  there,  it's  getting  into  a  little  boil,  it's  sim- 
mering. It's  time  to  skim  the  pot.  Forward  march,  men ! 
Let  an  impure  blood  inundate  the  furrows !  I  give  my  days 
to  my  country,  I  shall  never  see  my  concubine  more,  Nini, 
finished,  yes,  Nini?  But  never  mind!  Long  live  joy!  Let's 
fight,  crebleu !  I've  had  enough  of  despotism." 

At  that  moment,  the  horse  of  a  lancer  of  the  National 
Guard  having  fallen,  Gavroche  laid  his  pistol  on  the  pave- 
ment, and  picked  up  the  man,  then  he  assisted  in  raising  the 
horse.  After  which  he  picked  up  his  pistol  and  resumed  his 
way.  In  the  Rue  do  Thorigny,  all  was  peace  and  silence. 
This  apathy,  peculiar  to  the  Marais,  presented  a  contrast  with 
the  vast  surrounding  uproar.  Four  gossips  were  chatting  in 
a  doorway. 

Scotland  has  trios  of  witches,  Paris  has  quartettes  of  old 
gossiping  hngs ;  and  the  "Thou  shalt  be  King"  could  lie  quite 
as  mournfully  hurled  at  Bonaparte  in  the  Onrrefour  Baudoyer 
as  at  Macbeth  on  the  heath  of  Arinuyr.  The  croak  would  be 
almost  identical. 

The  gossips  of  the  Rue  dc  Thorigny  busied  themselves  only 
with  their  own  concerns.  Three  of  them  were  portresses. 


296  SAINT-DENIS 

and  the  fourth  was  a  rag-picker  with  her  basket  on  her 
back. 

All  four  of  them  seemed  to  be  standing  at  the  four  corners 
of  old  age,  which  are  decrepitude,  decay,  ruin,  and  sadness. 

The  rag-picker  was  humble.  In  this  open-air  society,  it  is 
the  rag-picker  who  salutes  and  the  portress  who  patronizes. 
This  is  caused  by  the  corner  for  refuse,  which  is  fat  or  lean, 
according  to  the  will  of  the  portresses,  and  after  the  fancy  of 
the  one  who  makes  the  heap.  There  may  be  kindness  in  the 
broom. 

This  rag-picker  was  a  grateful  creature,  and  she  smiled, 
with  what  a  smile !  on  the  three  portresses.  Things  of  this 
nature  were  said : — 

"Ah,  by  the  way,  is  your  cat  still  cross?" 

"Good  gracious,  cats  are  naturally  the  enemies  of  dogs,  you 
know.  It's  the  dogs  who  complain." 

"And  people  also." 

"But  the  fleas  from  a  cat  don't  go  after  people." 

"That's  not  the  trouble,  dogs  are  dangerous.  I  remember 
one  year  when  there  were  so  many  dogs  that  it  was  necessary 
to  put  it  in  the  newspapers.  That  was  at  the  time  when  there 
were  at  the  Tuileries  great  sheep  that  drew  the  little  carriage 
of  the  King  of  Rome.  Do  you  remember  the  King  of 
Rome?" 

"I  liked  the  Due  de  Bordeau  better." 

"I  knew  Louis  XVIII.     I  prefer  Louis  XVIII." 

"Meat  is  awfully  dear,  isn't  it,  Mother  Patagon?" 

"Ah !  don't  mention  it,  the  butcher's  shop  is  a  horror.  A 
horrible  horror — one  can't  afford  anything  but  the  poor  cuts 
nowadays." 

Here  the  rag-picker  interposed : — 

"Ladies,  business  is  dull.  The  refuse  heaps  are  miserable. 
No  one  throws  anything  away  any  more.  They  eat  every- 
thing." 

"There  are  poorer  people  than  you,  la  VargoulOme." 

"Ah,  that's  true,"  replied  the  rag-picker,  with  deference, 
"I  have  a  profession." 


THE  ATOM  AND  THE  HUKllICAXE  297 

A  pause  succeeded,  and  the  rag-picker,  yielding  to  that 
necessity  for  boasting  which  lies  at  the  bottom  of  man, 
added : — 

"In  the  morning,  on  my  return  home,  I  pick  over  my 
basket,  I  sort  my  things.  This  makes  heaps  in  my  room.  I 
put  the  rags  in  a  basket,  the  cores  and  stalks  in  a  bucket,  the 
linen  in  my  cupboard,  the  woollen  stuff  in  my  commode,  the 
old  papers  in  the  corner  of  the  window,  the  things  that  are 
good  to  eat  in  my  bowl,  the  bits  of  glass  in  my  fireplace,  the 
old  shoes  behind  my  door,  and  the  bones  under  rny  bed." 

Gavroche  had  stopped  behind  her  and  was  listening. 

"Old  ladies,"  said  he,  "what  do  you  mean  by  talking 
politics?" 

He  was  assailed  by  a  broadside,  composed  of  a  quadruple 
howl. 

"Here's  another  rascal." 

"What's  that  he's  got  in  his  paddle?     A  pistol?" 

"Well,  I'd  like  to  know  what  sort  of  a  beggar's  brat  this 
is?" 

"That  sort  of  animal  is  never  easy  unless  he's  overturning 
the  authorities." 

Gavroche  disdainfully  contented  himself,  by  way  of  reprisal, 
with  elevating  the  tip  of  his  nose  with  his  thumb  and  opening 
his  hand  wide. 

The  rag-picker  cried : — 

"You  malicious,  bare-pawed  little  wretch !" 

The  one  who  answered  to  the  name  of  Patagon  clapped  her 
hands  together  in  horror. 

"There's  going  to  be  evil  doings,  that's  certain.  The  errand- 
boy  next  door  has  a  little  pointed  beard,  I  have  seen  him  pass 
every  day  with  a  young  person  in  a  pink  bonnet  on  his  arm ; 
to-day  I  saw  him  pass,  and  he  had  a  gun  on  his  arm.  Mame 
Bacheux  says,  that  last  week  there  was  a  revolution  at — at — 
at — where's  the  calf ! — at  Pontoise.  And  then,  there  you  see 
him,  that  horrid  scamp,  with  his  pistol !  Tt  seems  that  the 
Celestins  are  full  of  pistols.  What  do  you  suppose  the  Govern- 
ment can  do  with  good-for-nothings  who  don't  know  how  to  do 


298  BA1NT-DENIS 

anything  but  contrive  ways  of  upsetting  the  world,  when  we 
had  just  begun  to  get  a  little  quiet  after  all  the  misfortunes 
that  have  happened,  good  Lord !  to  that  poor  queen  whom  I 
saw  pass  in  the  tumbril !  And  all  this  is  going  to  make 
tobacco  dearer.  It's  infamous !  And  I  shall  certainly  go  to 
see  him  beheaded  on  the  guillotine,  the  wretch !" 

"You've  got  the  sniffles,  old  lady,"  said  Gavroche.  "Blow 
your  promontory." 

And  he  passed  on.  When  he  was  in  the  Rue  Pavee,  the  rag- 
picker occurred  to  his  mind,  and  he  indulged  in  this  solilo- 
quy : — 

"You're  in  the  wrong  to  insult  the  revolutionists,  Mother 
Dust-Heap-Corner.  This  pistol  is  in  your  interests.  It's 
so  that  you  may  have  more  good  things  to  eat  in  your 
basket." 

All  at  once,  he  heard  a  shout  behind  him ;  it  was  the  portress 
Patagon  who  had  followed  him,  and  who  was  shaking  her  fist 
at  him  in  the  distance  and  crying: — 

"Y.  ou're  nothing  but  a  bastard." 

"Oh !  Come  now,"  said  Oavroche,  "I  don't  care  a  brass 
farthing  for  that!" 

Shortly  afterwards,  he  passed  the  Hotel  Lamoignon.  There 
he  uttered  this  appeal : — 

"Forward  march  to  the  battle !" 

And  he  was  seized  with  a  fit  of  melancholy.  He  gazed  at 
his  pistol  with  an  air  of  reproach  which  seemed  an  attempt  to 
appease  it : — 

"I'm  going  off,"  saicl  he,  "but  you  won't  go  off!" 

One  dog  may  distract  the  attention  from  another  dog.1  A 
very  gaunt  poodle  came  along  at  the  moment.  Gavroche  felt 
compassion  for  him. 

"My  poor  doggy,"  said  he,  "you  must  have  gone  and 
swallowed  a  cask,  for  all  the  hoops  are  visible." 

Then  he  directed  his  course  towards  1'Orme-Saint-Gervais. 

lChien,  dog,  trigger. 


THE  ATOM  AND  THK  HlKIflCANE  299 

CHAPTER  III 

JUST  INDIGNATION  OF  A   IIAIR-DKESSER 

THE  worthy  hair-dresser  who  had  chased  from  his  shop  the 
two  little  fellows  to  whom  Gavroche  had  opened  the  paternal 
interior  of  the  elephant  was  at  that  moment  in  his  shop 
engaged  in  shaving  an  old  soldier  of  the  legion  who  had  served 
under  the  Empire.  They  were  talking.  The  hair-dresser  had, 
naturally,  spoken  to  the  veteran  of  the  riot,  then  of  General 
Lamarque,  and  from  Lamarque  they  had  passed  to  the 
Emperor.  Thence  sprang  up  a  conversation  between  harber 
and  soldier  which  Prudhomme,  had  he  been  present,  would 
have  enriched  with  arabesques,  and  which  he  would  have 
entitled :  "Dialogue  between  the  razor  and  the  sword." 

"How  did  the  Emperor  ride,  sir?"  said  the  barber. 

"Badly.     He  did  not  know  how  to  fall — so  he  never  fell." 

"Did  he  have  fine  horses?     He  must  have  had  fine  horses !" 

"On  the  day  when  he  gave  me  my  cross,  T  noticed  his  beast. 
It  was  a  racing  mare,  perfectly  white.  Her  ears  were  very 
wide  apart,  her  saddle  deep,  a  fine  head  marked  with  a  black 
star,  a  very  long  neck,  strongly  articulated  knees,  prominent 
ribs,  oblique  shoulders  and  a  powerful  crupper.  A  little  more 
than  fifteen  hands  in  height." 

"A  pretty  horse,"  remarked  the  hair-dresser. 

"It  was  His  Majesty's  beast." 

The  hair-dresser  felt,  that  after  this  observation,  a  short 
silence  would  be  fitting,  so  he  conformed  himself  to  it,  and 
then  went  on : — 

"The  Emperor  was  never  wounded  but  once,  was  he,  sir?" 

The  old  soldier  replied  with  the  calm  and  sovereign  tone  of 
a  man  who  had  been  there : — 

"Tn  the  heel.  At  Ratisbon.  I  never  saw  him  so  well  dressed 
as  on  that  day.  He  was  as  neat  as  a  new  sou." 

"And  you,  Mr.  Veteran,  you  must  have  been  often 
wounded  ?" 


300  SAINT  DENI8 

"I  ?"  said  the  soldier,  "ah !  not  to  amount  to  anything. 
At  Marengo,  I  received  two  sabre-blows  on  the  back  of  my 
neck,  a  bullet  in  the  right  arm  at  Austerlitz,  another  in  the 
left  hip  at  Jena.  At  Friedland,  a  thrust  from  a  bayonet, 
there, —  at  the  Moskowa  seven  or  eight  lance-thrusts,  no 
matter  where,  at  Lutzen  a  splinter  of  a  shell  crushed  one  of 
my  fingers.  Ah !  and  then  at  Waterloo,  a  ball  from  a  biscai'en 
in  the  thigh,  that's  all." 

"How  fine  that  is !"  exclaimed  the  hair-dresser,  in  Pindaric 
accents,  "to  die  on  the  field  of  battle !  On  my  word  of  honor, 
rather  than  die  in  bed,  of  an  illness,  slowly,  a  bit  by  bit  each 
day,  with  drugs,  cataplasms,  syringes,  medicines,  I  should 
prefer  to  receive  a  cannon-ball  in  my  belly !" 

"You're  not  over  fastidious,"  said  the  soldier. 

He  had  hardly  spoken  when  a  fearful  crash  shook  the  shop. 
The  show-window  had  suddenly  been  fractured. 

The  wig-maker  turned  pale. 

"Ah,  good  God !"  he  exclaimed,  "it's  one  of  them !" 

"What?" 

"A  cannon-ball." 

"Here  it  is,"  said  the  soldier. 

And  he  picked  up  something  that  was  rolling  about  the 
floor.  It  was  a  pebble. 

The  hair-dresser  ran  to  the  broken  window  and  beheld 
Gavroche  fleeing  at  the  full  speed,  towards  the  Marche  Saint- 
Jean.  As  he  passed  the  hair-dresser's  shop  Gavroche,  who 
had  the  two  brats  still  in  his  mind,  had  not  been  able  to 
resist  the  impulse  to  say  good  day  to  him,  and  had  flung  a 
stone  through  his  panes. 

"You  see !"  shrieked  the  hair-dresser,  who  from  white  had 
turned  blue,  "that  fellow  returns  and  does  mischief  for  the 
pure  pleasure  of  it.  What  has  any  one  done  to  that  gamin  ?" 


THE  ATOM  AND  THE  HURRICANE  3Q1 

CHAPTER    TV 

THE  CHILD  IS  AMAZED  AT  THE  OLD  MAN 

IN  the  meantime,  in  the  Marche  Saint-Jean,  where  the  post 
had  already  been  disarmed,  Gavroche  had  just  "effected  a 
junction"  with  a  hand  led  by  Enjolras,  Courfeyrac.  Combe- 
ferre,  and  '-  uilly.  They  were  armed  after  u  fashion. 
Bahorel  and  Jean  Prouvaire  had  found  them  and  swelled  the 
group.  Enjolras  had  a  double-barrelled  hunting-gun,  Combe- 
ferre  the  gun  of  a  National  Guard  bearing  the  number  of  his 
legion,  and  in  his  belt,  two  pistols  which  his  unbuttoned  eoat 
allowed  to  be  seen,  Jean  Prouvaire  an  old  cavalry  musket, 
Bahorel  a  rifle;  Courfeyrac  was  brandishing  an  unsheathed 
sword-cane.  Feuilly,  with  a  naked  sword  in  his  hand,  marched 
at  their  head  shouting:  "Long  live  Poland!" 

They  reached  the  Quai  Morland.  Cravatless,  hatless, 
breathless,  soaked  by  the  rain,  with  lightning  in  their  eyes. 
Gavroche  accosted  them  calmly : — 

"Where  are  we  going?" 

"Come  along,"  said  Courfeyrac. 

Behind  Feuilly  marched,  or  rather  bounded,  Bahorel,  who 
was  like  a  fish  in  water  in  a  riot.  He  wore  a  scarlet  waistcoat, 
and  indulged  in  the  sort  of  words  which  break  everything. 
His  waistcoat  astounded  a  passer-by,  who  cried  in  bewilder- 
ment : — 

"Here  are  the  reds !" 

"The  reds,  the  reds !"  retorted  Bahorel.  "A  queer  kind  of 
fear,  bourgeois.  For  my  part  I  don't  tremble  before  a  poppy, 
the  little  red  hat  inspires  me  with  no  alarm.  Take  my 
advice,  bourgeois,  let's  leave  fear  of  the  red  to  horned 
cattle." 

He  caught  sight  of  a  corner  of  the  wall  on  which  was  pla- 
carded the  most  peaceable  sheet  of  paper  in  the  world,  a  per- 
mission to  eat,  eggs,  a  Lenten  admonition  addressed  by  the 
Archbishop  of  Paris  to  his  "flock." 


302  SAINT-DENIS 

Bahorel  exclaimed : — 

"  'Flock' ;  a  polite  way  of  saying  geese." 

And  he  tore  the  charge  from  the  nail.  This  conquered 
Gavroche.  From  that  instant  Gavroche  set  himself  to  study 
Bahorel. 

"Bahorel,"  observed  Enjolras,  "you  are  wrong.  You  should 
have  let  that  charge  alone,  he  is  not  the  person  with  whom 
we  have  to  deal,  you  are  wasting  your  wrath  to  no  purpose. 
Take  care  of  your  supply.  One  does  not  fire  out  of  the  ranks 
with  the  soul  any  more  than  with  a  gun." 

"Each  one  in  his  own  fashion,  Enjolras,"  retorted  Bahorel. 
"This  bishop's  prose  shocks  me;  I  want  to  eat  eggs  without 
being  permitted.  Your  style  is  the  hot  and  cold ;  I  am  amus- 
ing myself.  Besides,  I'm  not  wasting  myself,  I'm  getting  a 
start ;  and  if  I  tore  down  that  charge,  Hercle !  'twas  only  to 
whet  my  appetite." 

This  word,  Hercle,  struck  Gavroche.  He  sought  all  occa- 
sions for  learning,  and  that  tearer-down  of  posters  possessed 
his  esteem.  He  inquired  of  him: — 

"What  does  Ilercle  mean?" 

Bahorel  answered : — 

"It  means  cursed  name  of  a  dog,  in  Latin." 

Here  Bahorel  recognized  at  a  window  a  pale  young  man 
with  a  black  beard  who  was  watching  them  as  they 
passed,  probably  a  Friend  of  the  ABC.  He  shouted  to 
him: — 

"Quick,  cartridges,  para  bellum." 

"A  fine  man !  that's  true,"  said  Gavroche,  who  now  under- 
etood  Latin. 

A  tumultuous  retinue  accompanied  them, — students,  artists, 
young  men  affiliated  to  the  Cougourde  of  Aix,  artisans,  long- 
shoremen, armed  with  clubs  and  bayonets ;  some,  like  Combe- 
ferre,  with  pistols  thrust  into  their  trousers. 

An  old  man,  who  appeared  to  be  extremely  aged,  was  walk- 
ing in  the  band. 

He  had  no  arms,  and  he  made  great  haste,  so  that  he  might 
not  be  left  behind,  although  he  had  a  thoughtful  air. 


THE  ATOM  AND  THE  HURRICANE 

Gavroche  caught  sight  of  him : — 
"Keksekga?"  said  he  to  Courfeyrac. 
"He's  an  old  duffer." 
It  was  M.  Mabeuf. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  OLD  MAN 

LET  us  recount  what  had  taken  place. 

Enjolras  and  his  friends  had  been  on  the  Boulevard  Bour- 
don, near  the  public  storehouses,  at  the  moment  when  the 
dragoons  had  made  their  charge.  Enjolras,  Courfeyrac,  and 
Combeferrc  were  among  those  who  had  taken  to  the  Rue 
Bassompierre,  shouting :  "To  the  barricades !"  In  the  Rue 
Lesdiguieres  they  had  met  an  old  man  walking  along.  What 
had  attracted  their  attention  was.  that  the  goodman  was  walk- 
ing in  a  zig-zag,  as  though  he  were  intoxicated.  Moreover,  he 
had  his  hat  in  his  hand,  although  it  had  been  raining  all  the 
morning,  and  was  raining  pretty  briskly  at  the  very  time. 
Courfeyrac  had  recognized  Father  Mabeuf.  He  knew  him 
through  having  many  times  accompanied  Marius  as  far  as  his 
door.  As  he  was  acquainted  with  the  peaceful  and  more  than 
timid  habits  of  the  old  beadle-book-collector,  and  was  amazed 
at  the  sight  of  him  in  the  midst  of  that  uproar,  a  couple  of 
paces  from  the  cavalry  charges,  almost  in  the  midst  of  a 
fusillade,  hatless  in  the  rain,  and  strolling  about  among  the 
bullets,  he  had  accosted  him,  and  the  following  dialogue  had 
been  exchanged  between  the  rioter  of  fire  and  the  octo- 
genarian : — 

"M.  Mabeuf,  go  to  your  home." 

"Why  ?" 

"There's  going  to  be  a  row." 

"That's  well." 

"Thrusts  with  the  sword  and  firing.  M.  Mabeuf." 

"That  is  well." 


304  SAINT-DENIS 

"Firing  from  cannon." 

"That  is  good.     Where  are  the  rest  of  you  going?" 

"We  are  going  to  fling  the  government  to  the  earth." 

"That  is  good." 

And  he  had  set  out  to  follow  them.  From  that  moment 
forth  he  had  not  uttered  a  word.  His  step  had  suddenly 
become  firm ;  artisans  had  offered  him  their  arms ;  he  had 
refused  with  a  sign  of  the  head.  He  advanced  nearly  to  the 
front  rank  of  the  column,  with  the  movement  of  a  man  who 
is  marching  and  the  countenance  of  a  man  who  is  sleeping. 

"What  a  fierce  old  fellow !"  muttered  the  students.  The 
rumor  spread  through  the  troop  that  he  was  a  former  member 
of  the  Convention, — an  old  regicide.  The  mob  had  turned  in 
through  the  Rue  de  la  Arerrerie. 

Little  Gavroche  marched  in  front  with  that  deafening  song 
which  made  of  him  a  sort  of  trumpet. 

He  sang: — 

"Voici  la  lune  qui  paralt, 
Quand  irons-nous  dans  la  foret? 
Demandait  Chariot  a  Charlotte. 

Tou  tou  tou 
Pour  Chatou. 
Je  n'ai  qu'un  Dieu,  qu'un  roi,  qu'un  Hard,  et  qu'une  bottc. 

"Pour  avoir  bu  de  prand  matin 
La  ros6e  a  meme  le  thym, 
Deux  moineaux  elaient  en  ribotte. 

Zi  zi  zi 
Pour  Passy. 
Je  n'ai  qu'un  Dieu,  qu'un  roi,  qu'un  Hard,  et  qu'une  botte. 

"Et  cjs  deux  pauvres  petits  loups, 
Comme  deux  grives  gtaient  soflls; 
Une  tigre  en  riait  dans  sa  grotte. 

Don  don  don 
Pour  Meudon. 
Je  n'ai  qu'un  Dieu,  qu'un  roi,  qu'un  Hard,  et  qu'une  botte. 

"L'un  jurait  et  1'autre  sacrait. 
Quand  irons  nous  dans  la  forCt? 
Demandait  Chariot  a  Charlotte. 


THE  ATOM  AND  THE  UURKICANE  395 

Tin  tin  tin 
Pour  Pantin. 
Je  n'ai  qu'un  Dieu,  qu'un  roi,  qu'un  Hard,  et  qu'une  botte."1 

They  directed  their  course  towards  Saint-Merry. 


CHAPTER   VI 

RECRUITS 

THE  band  augmented  every  moment.  Near  the  Rue  des 
Billettes,  a  man  of  lofty  stature,  whose  hair  was  turning  gray, 
and  whose  bold  and  daring  mien  was  remarked  by  Courfeyrac, 
Enjolras,  and  Combeferre,  but  whom  none  of  them  knew, 
joined  them.  Gavroche,  who  was  occupied  in  singing, 
whistling,  humming,  running  on  ahead  and  pounding  on  the 
shutters  of  the  shops  with  the  butt  of  his  triggerless  pistol, 
paid  no  attention  to  this  man. 

It  chanced  that  in  the  Rue  de  la  Yerrerie,  they  passed  in 
front  of  Courfeyrac's  door. 

"This  happens  just  right,"  said  Courfeyrac,  "I  have  for- 
gotten my  purse,  and  I  have  lost  my  hat." 

He  quitted  the  mob  and  ran  up  to  his  quarters  at  full  speed. 
He  seized  an  old  hat  and  his  purse. 

He  also  seized  a  large  square  coffer,  of  the  dimensions  of  a 
large  valise,  which  was  concealed  under  his  soiled  linen. 

As  he  descended  again  at  a  run,  the  portress  hailed  him : — 

"Monsieur  de  Courfeyrac !" 

"What's  your  name,  portress  ?" 

The  portress  stood  bewildered. 

'Here  is  the  morn  appearing.  When  shall  we  go  to  the  forest, 
Chariot  asked  Charlotte.  Ton,  tou,  tou,  for  Chatou,  1  have  but  one 
(Jod,  one  King,  one  half-farthing,  and  one  boot.  And  these  two  poor 
little  wolves  were  as  tipsy  as  sparrows  from  having  drunk  dew  and 
thyme  very  early  in  the  morning.  And  these  two  poor  little  things 
were  as  drunk  as  thrushes  in  a  vineyard;  a  tiger  laughed  at  them 
in  his  cave.  The  one  cursed,  the  other  swore.  When  shall  we  go  to 
the  forest?  Chariot  asked  Charlotte. 


306  SAINT-DENIS 

"Why,  you  know  perfectly  well,  I'm  the  concierge ;  my  name 
is  Mother  Veuvain." 

"Well,  if  you  call  me  Monsieur  de  Courfeyrac  again,  I  shall 
call  you  Mother  de  Veuvain.  Now  speak,  what's  the  matter? 
What  do  you  want  ?" 

"There  is  some  one  who  wants  to  speak  with  you." 

"Who  is  it?" 

"I  don't  know." 

"Where  is  he?" 

"In  my  lodge." 

"The  devil !"  ejaculated  Courfeyrac. 

"But  the  person  has  been  waiting  your  return  for  over  an 
hour,"  said  the  portress. 

At  the  same  time,  a  sort  of  pale,  thin,  small,  freckled,  and 
youthful  artisan,  clad  in  a  tattered  blouse  and  patched 
trousers  of  ribbed  velvet,  and  who  had  rather  the  air  of  a  girl 
accoutred  as  a  man  than  of  a  man,  emerged  from  the  lodge 
and  said  to  Courfeyrac  in  a  voice  which  was  not  the  least  in 
the  world  like  a  woman's  voice : — 

"Monsieur  Marius,  if  you  please." 

"He  is  not  here." 

"Will  he  return  this  evening  ?" 

"I  know  nothing  about  it." 

And  Courfeyrac  added : — 

"For  my  part,  I  shall  not  return." 

The  young  man  gazed  steadily  at  him  and  said : — 

"Why  not?" 

"Because." 

"Where  are  you  going,  then?" 

"What  business  is  that  of  yours  ?" 

"Would  you  like  to  have  me  carry  your  coffer  for  you  ?" 

"I  am  going  to  the  barricades." 

"Would  you  like  to  have  me  go  with  you  ?" 

"If  you  like !"  replied  Courfeyrac.  "The  street  is  free,  the 
pavements  belong  to  every  one." 

And  he  made  his  escape  at  a  run  to  join  his  friends.  When 
he  had  rejoined  them,  he  gave  the  coffer  to  one  of  them  to 


THE  ATOM  AM)  THE  III  URIC  AN  E  307 

carry.    It  was  only  a  quarter  of  an  hour  after  this  that  he  saw 
the  young  man,  who  had  actually  followed  them. 

A  mob  does  not  go  precisely  where  it  intends.  We  have 
explained  that  a  gust  of  wind  carries  it  away.  They  overshot 
Saint-Merry  and  found  themselves,  without  precisely  knowing 
how,  in  the  Rue  Saint-Denis. 


BOOK  TWELFTH.— CORINTHE 
CHAPTER  I 

HISTORY  OF  CORINTHE  FROM  ITS  FOUNDATION 

THE  Parisians  who  nowadays  on  entering  on  the  Rue  Ram- 
buteau  at  the  end  near  the  Halles,  notice  on  their  right,  op- 
posite the  Rue  Mondetour,  a  basket-maker's  shop  having  for  its 
sign  a  basket  in  the  form  of  Napoleon  the  Great  with  this  in- 
scription : — 

NAPOLEON  IS   MADE 
WHOLLY  OF  WILLOW, 

have  no  suspicion  of  the  terrible  scenes  which  this  very  spot 
witnessed  hardly  thirty  years  ago. 

It  was  there  that  lay  the  Rue  de  la  Chanvrerie,  which  ancient 
deeds  spell  Chanverrerie,  and  the  celebrated  public-house 
called  Corinthe. 

The  reader  will  remember  all  that  has  been  said  about  the 
barricade  effected  at  this  point,  and  eclipsed,  by  the  way,  by 
the  barricade  Saint-Merry.  It  was  on  this  famous  barricade 
of  the  Rue  de  la  Chanvrerie,  now  fallen  into  profound  ob- 
scurity, that  we  are  about  to  shed  a  little  light. 

May  we  be  permitted  to  recur,  for  the  sake  of  clearness  in 
the  recital,  to  the  simple  means  which  we  have  already  em- 
ployed in  the  case  of  Waterloo.  Persons  who  wish  to  picture 
to  themselves  in  a  tolerably  exact  manner  the  constitution  of 
the  houses  which  stood  at  that  epoch  near  the  Pointe  Saint- 
Eustache,  at  the  northeast  angle  of  the  Halles  of  Paris,  where 
to-day  lies  the  embouchure  of  the  Rue  Rambuteau,  have  only 
to  imagine  an  N  touching  the  Rue  Saint-Denis  with  its  sum- 


COR1NTHE  3Q9 

mit  and  the  Halles  with  its  hase,  and  whose  two  vertical  bars 
should  form  the  Rue  de  la  Grande-Truanderie,  and  the  Rue 
de  la  Chanvrerie,  and  whose  transverse  bar  should  be  formed 
by  the  Rue  de  la  Petite-Truanderie.  The  old  Rue  Mondetour 
cut  the  three  strokes  of  the  N  at  the  most  crooked  angles.  So 
that  the  labyrinthine  confusion  of  these  four  streets  sulliced 
to  form,  on  a  space  three  fathoms  square,  between  the  Ilalles 
and  the  Rue  Saint-Denis  on  the  one  hand,  and  between  the 
Rue  du  Cygne  and  the  Rue  des  Precheurs  on  the  other,  seven 
islands  of  houses,  oddly  cut  up,  of  varying  sizes,  placed  cross- 
wise and  hap-hazard,  and  barely  separated,  like  the  blocks  of 
stone  in  a  dock,  by  narrow  crannies. 

We  say  narrow  crannies,  and  we  can  give  no  more  just  idea 
of  those  dark,  contracted,  many-angled  alleys,  lined  with  eight- 
story  buildings.  These  buildings  were  so  decrepit  that,  in  the 
Rue  de  la  Chanvrerie  and  the  Rue  de  la  Petite-Truanderie,  the 
fronts  were  shored  up  with  beams  running  from  one  house  to 
another.  The  street  was  narrow  and  the  gutter  broad,  the 
pedestrian  there  walked  on  a  pavement  that  was  always  wet, 
skirting  little  stalls  resembling  cellars,  big  posts  encircled  with 
iron  hoops,  excessive  heaps  of  refuse,  and  gates  armed  with 
enormous,  century-old  gratings.  The  Rue  Rarnbuteau  has 
devastated  all  that. 

The  name  of  Mondetour  paints  marvellously  well  the  sin- 
uosities of  that  whole  set  of  streets.  A  little  further  on,  they 
are  found  still  better  expressed  by  the  Rue  Pirouette,  which 
ran  into  the  Rue  Mondetour. 

The  passer-by  who  got  entangled  from  the  Rue  Saint-Denis 
in  the  Rue  de  la  Chanvrerie  beheld  it  gradually  close  in  before 
him  as  though  he  had  entered  an  elongated  funnel.  At  the 
end  of  this  street,  which  was  very  short,  he  found  further 
passage  barred  in  the  direction  of  the  Halles  by  a  tall  row 
of  houses,  and  he  would  have  thought  himself  in  a  1)1  ind  alley, 
had  he  not  perceived  on  the  right  and  left  two  dark  cuts 
through  which  he  could  make  his  escape.  This  was  the  Rue 
Mondetour,  which  on  one  side  ran  into  the  Rue  de  Precheurs, 
and  on  the  other  into  the  Rue  du  Cygne  and  the  Petite-Truan- 


310  SAINT-DENIS 

derie.  At  the  bottom  of  this  sort  of  cul-de-sac,  at  the  angle 
of  the  cutting  on  the  right,  there  was  to  be  seen  a  house  which 
was  not  so  tall  as  the  rest,  and  which  formed  a  sort  of  cape  in 
the  street.  It  is  in  this  house,  of  two  stories  only,  that  an 
illustrious  wine-shop  had  been  merrily  installed  three  hundred 
years  before.  This  tavern  created  a  joyous  noise  in  the  very 
spot  which  old  Theophilus  described  in  the  following 
couplet : — 

Lft  branle  le  squelette  horrible 
D'un  pauvre  amant  qui  se  pendit.1 

The  situation  was  good,  and  tavern-keepers  succeeded  each 
other  there,  from  father  to  son. 

In  the  time  of  Mathurin  Regnier,  this  cabaret  was  called  the 
Pot-aux-Roscs,  and  as  the  rebus  was  then  in  fashion,  it  had  for 
its  sign-board,  a  post  (poteau)  painted  rose-color.  In  the  last 
century,  the  worthy  Natoire,  one  of  the  fantastic  masters  now- 
adays despised  by  the  stiff  school,  having  got  drunk  many 
times  in  this  wine-shop  at  the  very  table  where  Regnier  had 
drunk  his  fill,  had  painted,  by  way  of  gratitude,  a  bunch  of 
Corinth  grapes  on  the  pink  post.  The  keeper  of  the  cabaret, 
in  his  joy,  had  changed  his  device  and  had  caused  to  be  placed 
in  gilt  letters  beneath  the  bunch  these  words :  "At  the  Bunch 
of  Corinth  Grapes"  ("Au  Raisin  de  Corinthe").  Hence  the 
name  of  Corinthe.  Nothing  is  more  natural  to  drunken  men 
than  ellipses.  The  ellipsis  is  the  zig-zag  of  the  phrase.  Co- 
rinthe gradually  dethroned  the  Pot-aux-Roses.  The  last  pro- 
prietor of  the  dynasty,  Father  Hucheloup,  no  longer  ac- 
quainted even  with  the  tradition,  had  the  post  painted  blue. 

A  room  on  the  ground  floor,  where  the  bar  was  situated,  one 
on  the  first  floor  containing  a  billiard-table,  a  wooden  spiral 
staircase  piercing  the  ceiling,  wine  on  the  tables,  smoke  on  the 
walls,  candles  in  broad  daylight, — this  was  the  style  of  this 
cabaret.  A  staircase  with  a  trap-door  in  the  lower  room  led  to 
the  cellar.  On  the  second  floor  were  the  lodgings  of  the 
Hucheloup  family.  They  were  reached  by  a  staircase  which 

'There  swings  the  horrible  skeleton  of  a  poor  lover  who  hung 
himself. 


THE  ATOM  AND  THE  III  R It IV AN E 

was  a  ladder  rather  than  a  staircase,  and  had  for  their  en- 
trance only  a  private  door  in  the  large  room  on  the  first  floor. 
Under  the  roof,  in  two  mansard  attics,  were  the  nests  for  the 
servants.  The  kitchen  shared  the  ground-floor  with  the  tap- 
room. 

Father  Hucheloup  had,  possibly,  been  born  a  chemist,  but 
the  fact  is  that  he  was  a  cook;  people  did  not  confine  them- 
selves to  drinking  alone  in  his  wine-shop,  they  also  ate  there. 
Hucheloup  had  invented  a  capital  thing  which  could  be  eaten 
nowhere  but  in  his  house,  stuffed  carps,  which  he  called  carpes 
au  gras.  These  were  eaten  by  the  light  of  a  tallow  candle  or 
of  a  lamp  of  the  time  of  Louis  XVI.,  on  tables  to  which  were 
nailed  waxed  cloths  in  lieu  of  table-cloths.  People  came 
thither  from  a  distance.  Hucheloup,  one  fine  morning,  had 
seen  fit  to  notify  passers-by  of  this  "specialty" ;  he  had  dipped 
a  brush  in  a  pot  of  black  paint,  and  as  he  was  an  or- 
thographcr  on  his  own  account,  as  well  as  a  cook  after  his 
own  fashion,  he  had  improvised  on  his  wall  this  remarkable 
inscription : — 

CARPES  HO  QRAS. 

One  winter,  the  rain-storms  and  the  showers  had  taken  a 
fancy  to  obliterate  the  S  which  terminated  the  first  word, 
and  the  G  which  began  the  third;  this  is  what  remained: — 

CARPE     HO     RAS. 

Time  and  rain  assisting,  a  humble  gastronomical  announce- 
ment had  become  a  profound  piece  of  advice. 

In  this  way  it  came  about,  that  though  he  knew  no  French, 
Father  Hucheloup  understood  Latin,  that  he  had  evoked  phi- 
losophy from  his  kitchen,  and  that,  desirous  simply  of  effacing 
Lent,  he  had  equalled  Horace.  And  the  striking  thing  about 
it  was,  that  that  also  meant:  "Enter  my  wine-shop." 

Nothing  of  all  this  is  in  existence  now.  The  Mondetour 
labyrinth  was  disembowelled  and  widely  opened  in  1847,  and 
probably  no  longer  exists  at  the  present  moment.  The  Rue 


312  8AIXT-DENI8 

de  la  Chanvrcrie  and  Corinthe  have  disappeared  beneath  the 
pavement  of  the  Rue  Rarabuteau. 

As  we  have  already  said,  Corinthe  was  the  meeting-place  if 
not  the  rallying-point,  of  Courfeyrac  and  his  friends.  It  was 
Grantaire  who  had  discovered  Corinthe.  He  had  entered  it 
on  account  of  the  Carpe  Iwras,  and  had  returned  thither  on 
account  of  the  Carpes  au  gras.  There  they  drank,  there  they 
ate,  there  they  shouted ;  they  did  not  pay  much,  they  paid 
badly,  they  did  not  pay  at  all,  but  they  were  always  welcome. 
Father  Hucheloup  was  a  jovial  host. 

Hucheloup,  that  amiable  man,  as  was  just  said,  was  a  wine- 
shop-keeper with  a  mustache;  an  amusing  variety.  He  always 
had  an  ill-tempered  air,  seemed  to  wish  to  intimidate  his  cus- 
tomers, grumbled  at  the  people  who  entered  his  establishment, 
and  had  rather  the  mien  of  seeking  a  quarrel  with  them  than 
of  serving  them  with  soup.  And  yet,  we  insist  upon  the  word, 
people  were  always  welcome  there.  This  oddity  had  attracted 
customers  to  his  shop,  and  brought  him  young  men,  who  said 
to  each  other:  "Come  hear  Father  Hucheloup  growl."  He 
had  been  a  fencing-master.  All  of  a  sudden,  he  would  burst 
out  laughing.  A  big  voice,  a  good  fellow.  He  had  a  comic 
foundation  under  a  tragic  exterior,  he  asked  nothing  better 
than  to  frighten  you,  very  much  like  those  snuff-boxes  which 
are  in  the  shape  of  a  pistol.  The  detonation  makes  one 
sneeze. 

Mother  Hucheloup,  his  wife,  was  a  bearded  and  a  very 
homely  creature. 

About  1830,  Father  Hucheloup  died.  With  him  disap- 
peared the  secret  of  stuffed  carps.  His  inconsolable  widow 
continued  to  keep  the  wine-shop.  But  the  cooking  deterio- 
rated, and  became  execrable;  the  wine,  which  had  always  been 
bad,  became  fearfully  bad.  Nevertheless,  Courfeyrac  and  his 
friends  continued  to  go  to  Corinthe, — out  of  pity,  as  Bossuet 
said. 

The  Widow  Hucheloup  was  breathless  and  misshapen  and 
given  to  rustic  recollections.  She  deprived  thorn  of  their  flat- 
ness by  her  pronunciation.  She  had  a  way  of  her  own  of  say- 


THE  ATOM  AND  THE  HUKKICANE  313 

ing  things,  which  spiced  her  reminiscences  of  the  village  and 
of  her  springtime.  It  had  formerly  been  her  delight,  so  she 
affirmed,  to  hear  the  loups-de-gorge  (rouges-gorges)  cliantcr 
dans  /c.s  oyrepinc.s  (aubepines) — to  hear  the  redbreasts  sing 
in  the  hawthorn-trees. 

The  hall  on  the  first  floor,  where  "the  restaurant"  was  sit- 
uated, was  a  large  and  long  apartment  encumbered  with  stools, 
chairs,  benches,  and  tables,  and  with  a  crippled,  lame,  old  bil- 
liard-table. It  was  reached  by  a  spiral  staircase  which  termi- 
nated in  the  corner  of  the  room  at  a  square  hole  like  the  hatch- 
way of  a  ship. 

This  room,  lighted  by  a  single  narrow  window,  and  by  a 
lamp  that  was  always  burning,  had  the  air  of  a  garret.  All 
the  four-footed  furniture  comported  itself  as  though  it  had 
but  three  legs — the  whitewashed  walls  had  for  their  only 
ornament  the  following  quatrain  in  honor  of  Mame  Huche- 
loup : — 

Elle  ('tonne  a  dix  pas,  elle  gpouvente  a  deux, 

Une  verrue  habite  en  son  nez  hasardeux ; 

On  tremble  a  chaque  instant  qu'elle  ne  vous  la  mouche 

Et  qu'un  beau  jour  son  nez  netombe  dans  sa  bouche.1 

This  was  scrawled  in  charcoal  on  the  wall. 

Mame  Hucheloup,  a  good  likeness,  went  and  came  from 
morning  till  night  before  this  quatrain  with  the  most  perfect 
tranquillity.  Two  serving-maids,  named  Matelote  and 
Gibelotte,2  and  who  had  never  been  known  by  any  other  names, 
helped  Mame  Hucheloup  to  set  on  the  tables  the  jugs  of  poor 
wine,  and  the  various  broths  which  were  served  to  the  hungry 
patrons  in  earthenware  bowls.  Matelote,  large,  plump,  red- 
haired,  and  noisy,  the  favorite  ex-sultana  of  the  defunct 
Hucheloup,  was  homelier  than  any  mythological  monster,  be 

JShe  astounds  at  ten  paces,  she  frightens  at  two,  a  wart  inhabits 
her  hazardous  nose;  you  tremble  every  instant  lest  she  should  blow 
it  at  you,  and  lest,  some  fine  day,  her  nose  should  tumble  into  her 
mouth. 

'Matelote:  a  culinary  preparation  of  various  fishes.  Gibelotte: 
stewed  rabbits. 


314  SAINT-DENIS 

it  what  it  may ;  still,  as  it  becomes  the  servant  to  always  keep 
in  the  rear  of  the  mistress,  she  was  less  homely  than  Mame 
Hucheloup.  Gibelotte,  tall,  delicate,  white  with  a  lymphatic 
pallor,  with  circles  round  her  eyes,  and  drooping  lids,  always 
languid  and  weary,  afflicted  with  what  may  be  called  chronic 
lassitude,  the  first  up  in  the  house  and  the  last  in  bed,  waited 
on  every  one,  even  the  other  maid,  silently  and  gently,  smiling 
through  her  fatigue  with  a  vague  and  sleepy  smile. 

Before  entering  the  restaurant  room,  the  visitor  read  on 
the  door  the  following  line  written  there  in  chalk  by  Cour- 
feyrac : —  • 

Rggale  si  tu  peux  et  mange  si  tu  1'oses.1 


CHAPTER  II 

• 

PRELIMINARY  GAYETIES 

LAIQLE  DE  MEAUX,  as  the  reader  knows,  lived  more  with 
Joly  than  elsewhere.  He  had  a  lodging,  as  a  bird  has  one  on 
a  branch.  The  two  friends  lived  together,  ate  together,  slept 
together.  They  had  everything  in  common,  even  Musichetta, 
to  some  extent.  They  were,  what  the  subordinate  monks  who 
accompany  monks  are  called,  bini.  On  the  morning  of  the 
5th  of  June,  they  went  to  Corinthe  to  breakfast.  Joly,  who 
was  all  stuffed  up,  had  a  catarrh  which  Laigle  was  beginning 
to  share.  Laigle's  coat  was  threadbare,  but  Joly  was  well 
dressed. 

It  was  about  nine  o'clock  in  the  morning,  when  they  opened 
the  door  of  Corinthe. 

They  ascended  to  the  first  floor. 

Matelote  and  Gibelotte  received  them. 

"Oysters,  cheese,  and  ham,"  said  Laigle. 

And  they  seated  themselves  at  a  table. 

The  wine-shop  was  empty ;  there  was  no  one  there  but  them- 
selves. 

'Treat  if  you  can,  and  eat  if  you  dare. 


CORINTH E  315 

Gibclottc,  knowing  Joly  and  Laigle,  set  a  bottle  of  wine  on 
the  table. 

While  they  were  busy  with  their  first  oysters,  a  head 
appeared  at  the  hatchway  of  the  staircase,  and  a  voice 
said : — 

"1  am  passing  by.  I  smell  from  the  street  a  delicious  odor 
of  Brie  cheese.  I  enter."  It  was  Grantaire. 

Grantairc  took  a  stool  and  drew  up  to  the  table. 

At  the  sight  of  Grantaire,  Gibelotte  placed  two  bottles  of 
wine  on  the  table. 

That  made  three. 

""Are  you  going  to  drink  those  two  bottles?"  Laigle  inquired 
of  Grantairc. 

Grantaire  replied : — 

"All  are  ingenious,  thou  alone  art  ingenuous.  Two  bottles 
never  yet  astonished  a  man." 

The  others  had  begun  by  eating,  Grantaire  began  by  drink- 
ing. Half  a  bottle  was  rapidly  gulped  down. 

"So  you  have  a  hole  in  your  stomach?"  began  Laigle 
again. 

"You  have  one  in  your  elbow,"  said  Grantaire. 

And  after  having  emptied  his  glass,  he  added : — 

"Ah,  by  the  way,  Laigle  of  the  funeral  oration,  your  coat 
is  old." 

"I  should  hope  so,"  retorted  Laigle.  "That's  why  we  get 
on  well  together,  my  coat  and  I.  It  has  acquired  all  my  folds, 
it  does  not  bind  me  anywhere,  it  is  moulded  on  my  deformities, 
it  falls  in  with  all  my  movements,  I  am  only  conscious  of  it 
because  it  keeps  me  warm.  Old  coats  are  just  like  old 
friends." 

"That's  true,"  ejaculated  Joly,  striking  into  the  dialogue, 
"an  old  goat  is  an  old  abi"  (ami,  friend). 

"Especially  in  the  mouth  of  a  man  whose  head  is  stuffed 
up,"  said  Grantaire. 

"Grantaire,"  demanded  Laigle,  "have  you  just  come  from 
the  boulevard?" 

"No." 


316  SAINT-DENIS 

"We  have  just  seen  the  head  of  the  procession  pass,  Joly 
and  I." 

"It's  a  marvellous  sight,"  said  Joly. 

"How  quiet  this  street  is !"  exclaimed  Laigle.  "Who  would 
suspect  that  Paris  was  turned  upside  down?  How  plainly  it 
is  to  be  seen  that  in  former  days  there  were  nothing  but 
convents  here !  In  this  neighborhood  !  Du  Breul  and  Sauval 
give  a  list  of  them,  and  so  does  the  Abbe  Lebeuf.  They  were 
all  round  here,  they  fairly  swarmed,  booted  and  barefooted, 
shaven,  bearded,  gray,  black,  white,  Franciscans,  Minims, 
Capuchins,  Carmelites,  Little  Augustines.  Great  Augustines, 
old  Augustines — there  was  no  end  of  them." 

"Don't  let's  talk  of  monks,"  interrupted  Grantaire,  "it 
makes  one  want  to  scratch  one's  self." 

Then  he  exclaimed: — 

"Bouh !  I've  just  swallowed  a  bad  oyster.  Now  hypochon- 
dria is  taking  possession  of  me  again.  The  oysters  are  spoiled, 
the  servants  are  ugly.  I  hate  the  human  race.  I  just  passed 
through  the  Rue  Richelieu,  in  front  of  the  big  public  library. 
That  pile  of  oyster-shells  which  is  called  a  library  is  disgusting 
even  to  think  of.  What  paper  !  What  ink  !  What  scrawling ! 
And  all  that  has  been  written !  What  rascal  was  it  who  said 
that  man  was  a  featherless  biped  ?l  And  then,  I  met  a  pretty 
girl  of  my  acquaintance,  who  is  as  beautiful  as  the  spring, 
worthy  to  be  called  Floreal,  and  who  is  delighted,  enraptured, 
as  happy  as  the  angels,  because  a  wretch  yesterday,  a  frightful 
banker  all  spotted  with  small-pox,  deigned  to  take  a  fancy  to 
her !  Alas !  woman  keeps  on  the  watch  for  a  protector  as 
much  as  for  a  lover;  cats  chase  mice  as  well  as  birds.  Two 
months  ago  that  young  woman  was  virtuous  in  an  attic,  she 
adjusted  little  brass  rings  in  the  eyelet-holes  of  corsets,  what 
do  you  call  it?  She  sewed,  she  had  a  camp  bed,  she  dwelt 
beside  a  pot  of  flowers,  she  was  contented.  Now  here  she  is  a 
bankeress.  This  transformation  took  place  last  night.  1  met 
the  victim  this  morning  in  high  spirits.  The  hideous  point 
about  it  is,  that  the  jade  is  as  pretty  to-day  as  she  was  yester- 
lBip£de  sans  plume:  biped  without  feathers — or  pen. 


COKINTHE  317 

day.  Her  financier  did  not  show  in  her  face.  Roses  have  this 
advantage  or  disadvantage  over  women,  that  the  traces  left 
upon  them  by  caterpillars  are  visible.  Ah !  there  is  no 
morality  on  earth.  I  call  to  witness  the  myrtle,  the  symbol  of 
love,  the  laurel,  the  symbol  of  air,  the  olive,  that  ninny,  the 
symbol  of  peace,  the  apple-tree  which  came  nearest  rangling 
Adam  with  its  pips,  and  the  fig-tree,  the  grandfather  of  petti- 
coats. As  for  right,  do  you  know  what  right  is?  The  Gauls 
covet  Clusium,  Rome  protects  Clusium,  and  demands  what 
wrong  Clusium  has  done  to  them.  Brennus  answers:  'The 
wrong  that  Alba  did  to  you,  the  wrong  that  Fidenac  did  to  you, 
the  wrong  that  the  Eques,  the  Volsci,  and  the  Sabines  have 
done  to  you.  They  were  your  neighbors.  The  Clusians  are 
ours.  We  understand  neighborliness  just  as  you  do.  You 
have  stolen  Alba,  we  shall  take  Clusium.'  Rome  said :  'You 
shall  not  take  Clusium.'  Brennus  took  Rome.  Then  he  cried : 
'Vae  victis !'  That  is  what  right  is.  Ah !  what  beasts  of  prey 
there  are  in  this  world !  What  eagles !  It  makes  my  flesh 
creep." 

He  held  out  his  glass  to  Joly,  who  filled  it,  then  he  drank 
and  went  on,  having  hardly  been  interrupted  by  this  glass 
of  wine,  of  which  no  one,  not  even  himself,  had  taken  any 
notice : — 

"Brennus,  who  takes  Rome,  is  an  eagle;  the  banker  who 
takes  the  grisette  is  an  eagle.  There  is  no  more  modesty  in 
the  one  case  than  in  (he  other.  So  we  believe  in  nothing. 
There  is  but  one  reality:  drink.  Whatever  your  opinion 
may  be  in  favor  of  the  lean  cock,  like  the  Canton  of  Uri,  or  in 
favor  of  the  fat  cock,  like  the  Canton  of  Glaris,  it  matters 
little,  drink.  You  talk  to  me  of  the  boulevard,  of  that  pro- 
cession, ct  ccrtcra,  et  ca'tcra.  Come  now,  is  there  going  to  be 
another  revolution  ?  This  poverty  of  ineans  on  the  part  of  the 
good  God  astounds  me.  He  has  to  keep  greasing  the  groove 
of  events  every  moment.  There  is  a  hitch,  it  won't  work. 
Quick,  a  revolution  !  The  good  God  has  his  hands  perpetually 
black  with  that  cart-grease.  If  I  were  in  his  place,  I'd  be 
perfectly  simple  about  it,  I  would  not  wind  up  my  mechanism 


318  SAINT-DENIS 

every  minute,  I'd  lead  the  human  race  in  a  straightforward 
way,  I'd  weave  matters  mesh  by  mesh,  without  breaking  the 
thread.  I  would  have  no  provisional  arrangements,  I  would 
have  no  extraordinary  repertory.  What  the  rest  of  you  call 
progress  advances  by  means  of  two  motors,  men  and  events. 
But,  sad  to  say,  from  time  to  time,  the  exceptional  becomes 
necessary.  The  ordinary  troupe  suffices  neither  for  event 
nor  for  men:  among  men  geniuses  are  required,  among  events 
revolutions.  Great  accidents  are  the  law;  the  order  of  things 
cannot  do  without  them ;  and,  judging  from  the  apparition 
of  comets,  one  would  be  tempted  to  think  that  Heaven  itself 
finds  actors  needed  for  its  performance.  At  the  moment  when 
one  expects  it  the  least,  God  placards  a  meteor  on  the  wall  of 
the  firmament.  Some  queer  star  turns  up,  underlined  by  an 
enormous  tail.  And  that  causes  the  death  of  Ca?sar.  Brutus 
deals  him  a  blow  with  a  knife,  and  God  a  blow  with  a  comet. 
Crac,  and  behold  an  aurora  borealis,  behold  a  revolution, 
behold  a  great  man ;  '93  in  big  letters,  Napoleon  on  guard,  the 
comet  of  1811  at  the  head  of  the  poster.  Ah  !  what  a  beautiful 
blue  theatre  all  studded  with  unexpected  flashes !  Bourn ! 
Bourn !  extraordinary  show  !  Raise  your  eyes,  boobies.  Every- 
thing is  in  disorder,  the  star  as  well  as  the  drama.  Good 
God,  it  is  too  much  and  not  enough.  These  resources,  gath- 
ered from  exception,  seem  magnificence  and  poverty.  My 
friends,  Providence  has  come  down  to  expedients.  What  does 
a  revolution  prove?  That  God  is  in  a  quandry.  He  effects  a 
coup  d'etat  because  he,  God,  has  not  been  able  to  make  both 
ends  meet.  In  fact,  this  confirms  me  in  my  conjectures  as  to 
Jehovah's  fortune ;  and  when  I  see  so  much  distress  in  heaven 
and  on  earth,  from  the  bird  who  has  not  a  grain  of  millet  to 
myself  without  a  hundred  thousand  livres  of  income,  when  I 
see  human  destiny,  which  is  very  badly  worn,  and  even  royal 
destiny, which  is  threadbare, witness  the  PrincedeConde  hung, 
when  1  see  winter,  which  is  nothing  but  a  rent  in  the  zenith 
through  which  the  wind  blows,  when  I  see  so  many  rags  even 
in  the  perfectly  new  purple  of  the  morning  on  the  crests  of 
hills,  when  I  see  the  drops  of  dew,  those  mock  pearls,  when 


CORINTH  E  319 

I  see  the  frost,  that  paste,  when  I  see  humanity  ripped  apart 
and  events  patched  up,  and  so  many  spots  on  the  sun  and  so 
many  holes  in  the  rnoon,  when  I  see  so  much  misery  every- 
where, 1  suspect  that  God  is  not  rich.  The  appearance  exists, 
it  is  true,  but  I  feel  that  he  is  hard  up.  He  gives  a  revolution 
as  a  tradesman  whose  money-hox  is  empty  gives  a  hall.  God 
must  not  be  judged  from  appearances.  Beneath  the  gilding 
of  heaven  I  perceive  a  poverty-stricken  universe.  Creation  is 
bankrupt.  That  is  why  I  am  discontented.  Here  it  is  the 
4th  of  June,  it  is  almost  night ;  ever  since  this  morniYig  I  have 
been  waiting  for  daylight  to  come ;  it  has  not  come,  and  I  bet 
that  it  won't  come  all  day.  ('"'his  is  the  inexactness  of  an  ill- 
paid  clerk.  Yes,  everything  is  badly  arranged,  nothing  fits 
anything  else,  this  old  world  is  all  warped,  I  take  my  stand 
on  the  opposition,  everything  goes  awry ;  the  universe  is  a 
tease.  It's  like  children,  those  who  want  them  have  none, 
and  those  who  don't  want  them  have  them.  Total :  I'm  vexed. 
Besides,  Laigle  de  Meaux,  that  bald-head,  offends  my  sight. 
It  humiliates  me  to  think  that  I  am  of  the  same  age  as  that 
baldy.  However,  I  criticise,  but  I  do  not  insult.  The  universe 
is  what  it  is.  I  speak  here  without  evil  intent  and  to  ease 
my  conscience.  Receive,  Eternal  Father,  the  assurance  of  my 
distinguished  consideration.  Ah  !  by  all  the  saints  of  Olympus 
and  by  all  the  gods  of  paradise,  I  was  not  intended  to  be  a 
Parisian,  that  is  to  say,  to  rebound  forever,  like  a  shuttlecoek 
between  two  battledores,  from  the  group  of  the  loungers  to 
the  group  of  the  roysterers.  I  was  made  to  be  a  Turk,  watch- 
ing oriental  houris  all  day  long,  executing  those  exquisite 
Egyptian  dances,  as  sensuous  as  the  dream  of  a  chaste  man. 
or  a  Beauccron  peasant,  or  a  Venetian  gentleman  surrounded 
by  gentlewomen,  or  a  petty  German  prince,  furnishing  the 
half  of  a  foot-soldier  to  the  Germanic  confederation,  and 
occupying  his  leisure  with  drying  his  breeches  on  his  hedge, 
that  is  to  say,  his  frontier.  Those  are  the  positions  for  which 
I  was  born !  Yes,  I  have  said  a  Turk,  ami  I  will  not  retract. 
I  do  not  understand  how  people  can  habitually  take  Turks  in 
bad  part ;  Mohammed  had  his  good  points ;  respect  for  the 


320  BAINT-DENI8 

inventor  of  seraglios  with  houris  and  paradises  with  oda- 
lisques !  Let  us  not  insult  Mohammedanism,  the  only  religion 
which  is  ornamented  with  a  hen-roost !  Now,  I  insist  on  a 
drink.  The  earth  is  a  great  piece  of  stupidity.  And  it  appears 
that  they  are  going  to  fight,  all  those  imbeciles,  and  to  break 
each  other's  profiles  and  to  massacre  each  other  in  the  heart 
of  summer,  in  the  month  of  June,  when  they  might  go  off 
with  a  creature  on  their  arm,  to  breathe  the  immense  heaps 
of  new-mown  hay  in  the  meadows !  Really,  people  do  commit 
altogether'  too  many  follies.  An  old  broken  lantern  which  I 
have  just  seen  at  a  bric-a-brac  merchant's  suggests  a  reflection 
to  my  mind;  it  is  time  to  enlighten  the  human  race.  Yes, 
behold  me  sad  again.  That's  what  comes  of  swallowing  an 
oyster  and  a  revolution  the  wrong  way !  I  am  growing  melan- 
choly once  more.  Oh !  frightful  old  world.  People  strive, 
turn  each  other  out,  prostitute  themselves,  kill  each  other, 
and  get  used  to  it !" 

And  Grantaire,  after  this  fit  of  eloquence,  had  a  fit  of  cough- 
ing, which  was  well  earned. 

"A  propos  of  revolution,"  said  Joly,  "it  is  decidedly  abba- 
rent  that  Barius  is  in  lub." 

"Does  any  one  know  with  whom?"  demanded  Laigle. 

"Do." 

"Xo  ?" 

"Do  !  I  tell  you." 

"Marius'  love  affairs !"  exclaimed  Grantaire.  "I  can  im- 
agine it.  Marius  is  a  fog.  and  he  must  have  found  a  vapor. 
Marius  is  of  the  race  of  poets.  He  who  says  poet,  says  fool, 
madman,  Tymbrcrus  Apollo.  Marius  and  his  Marie,  or  his 
Marion,  or  his  Maria,  or  his  Mariette.  They  must  make  a 
queer  pair  of  lovers.  I  know  just  what  it  is  like.  Ecstasies 
in  which  they  forget  to  kiss.  Pure  on  earth,  but  joined  in 
heaven.  They  are  souls  possessed  of  senses.  They  lie  among 
the  stars." 

Grantaire  was  attacking  his  second  bottle  and,  possibly,  his 
second  harangue,  when  a  new  personage  emerged  from  the 
square  aperture  of  the  stairs.  It  was  a  boy  less  than  ten  years 


CORINTH  E  321 

of  age,  ragged,  very  small,  yellow,  with  an  odd  phiz,  a  viva- 
cious eye,  an  enormous  amount  of  hair  drenched  with  rain, 
and  wearing  a  contented  air. 

The  child  unhesitatingly  making  his  choice  among  the  three, 
addressed  himself  to  Laigle  de  Meaux. 

"Arc  you  Monsieur  Bossuet?" 

"That  is  my  nickname,"  replied  Laigle.  "What  do  you 
want  with  me?" 

"This.  A  tall  blonde  fellow  on  the  boulevard  said  to  me : 
'Do  you  know  Mother  Hucheloup?'  I  said:  'Yes,  Rue  Chan- 
vrerie,  the  old  man's  widow ;'  he  said  to  me :  'Go  there.  There 
you  will  find  M.  Bossuet.  Tell  him  from  me :  "A  B  C'V  It's 
a  joke  that  they're  playing  on  you,  isn't  it.  He  gave  me 
ten  sous." 

"Joly,  lend  me  ten  sous,"  said  Laigle ;  and,  turning  to 
Grantaire :  "Grantaire.  lend  me  ten  sous." 

This  made  twenty  sous,  which  Laigle  handed  to  the  lad. 

"Thank  you,  sir,"  said  the  urchin. 

"What  is  your  name?"  inquired  Laigle. 

"Navet,  Gavroche's  friend." 

"Stay  with  us,"  said  Laigle. 

"Breakfast  with  us,"  said  Grantaire. 

The  child  replied  : — 

"I  can't,  I  belong  in  the  procession,  I'm  the  one  to  shout 
'Down  with  Polignac  !' '; 

And  executing  a  prolonged  scrape  of  his  foot  behind  him, 
which  is  the  most  respectful  of  all  possible  salutes,  he  took 
his  departure. 

The  child  gone,  Grantaire  took  the  word: — 

"That  is  the  pure-bred  gamin.  There  are  a  great  many 
varieties  of  the  gamin  species.  The  notary's  gamin  is  called 
Skip-the-Gutter,  the  cook's  gamin  is  called  a  scullion,  the 
baker's  gamin  is  called  a  mitron,  the  lackey's  gamin  is  called  a 
groom,  the  marine  gamin  is  called  the  cabin-boy,  the  soldier's 
gamin  is  called  the  drummer-boy,  the  painter's  gamin  is  called 
paint-grinder,  the  tradesman's  gamin  is  called  an  errand-boy, 
the  courtesan  gamin  is  called  the  minion,  the  kingly  gamin 


322  BAI  XT-DEN  IS 

is  called  the  dauphin,   the  god  gamin   is  called   the  bam- 
bino." 

In  the  meantime,  Laigle  was  engaged  in  reflection ;  he  said 
half  aloud: — 

"A  B  C,  that  is  to  say:  the  burial  of  Lamarque." 

"The  tall  blonde,"  remarked  Grantaire,  "is  Enjolras,  who  is 
sending  you  a  warning." 

"Shall  we  go?"  ejaculated  Bossuet. 

•   "It's  raiding/'  said  Joly.    "I  have  sworn  to  go  through  fire, 
but  not  through  water.     I  don't  wand  to  gcd  a  gold." 

"1  shall  stay  here,"  said  Grantaire.  "I  prefer  a  breakfast 
to  a  hearse." 

"Conclusion :  we  remain,"  said  Laigle.  "Well,  then,  let  us 
drink.  Besides,  we  might  miss  the  funeral  without  missing 
the  riot." 

"Ah  !  the  riot,  I  am  with  you  !"  cried  Joly. 

Laigle  rubbed  his  hands. 

"Now  we're  going  to  touch  up  the  revolution  of  1830.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  it  does  hurt  the  people  along  the  seam?." 

"I  don't  think  much  of  your  revolution,"  said  Grantaire. 
"I  don't  execrate  this  Government.  It  is  the  crown  tempered 
by  the  cotton  night-cap.  It  is  a  sceptre  ending  in  an  umbrella. 
In  fact,  I  think  that  to-day,  with  the  present  weather,  Loais 
Philippe  might  utilize  his  royalty  in  two  direction?,  he  might 
extend  the  tip  of  the  sceptre  end  against  the  people,  and  open 
the  umbrella  end  against  heaven." 

The  room  was  dark,  large  clouds  had  just  finished  the 
extinction  of  daylight.  There  was  no  one  in  the  wine-shop, 
or  in  the  street,  every  one  having  gone  off  "to  watch  events." 

"Is  it  mid-day  or  midnight?"  cried  Bossuet.  "You  can't 
see  your  hand  before  your  face.  Gibelotte,  fetch  a  light." 

Grantaire  was  drinking  in  a  melancholy  way. 

"Enjolras  disdains  me,"  he  muttered.  "Enjolras  said: 
'Joly  is  ill,  Grantaire  is  drunk.'  It  was  to  Bossuet  that  he 
sent  Navet.  If  he  had  come  for  me,  I  would  have  followed 
him.  So  much  the  worse  for  Enjolras !  I  won't  go  to  his 
funeral." 


CORINTHE  323 

This  resolution  once  arrived  at,  Bossuet,  Joly,  and  Gran- 
taire  did  not  stir  from  the  wine-shop.  By  two  o'clock  in  the 
afternoon,  the  table  at  which  they  sat  was  covered  with  empty 
bottles.  Two  candles  were  burning  on  it,  one  in  a  flat  copper 
candlestick  which  was  perfectly  green,  the  other  in  the  neck  of 
a  cracked  caraffe.  Grantaire  had  seduced  Joly  and  Bossuet  to 
wine;  Bossuet  and  Joly  had  conducted  Grantaire  back  towards 
cheerfulness. 

As  for  Grantaire,  he  had  got  beyond  wine,  that  merely  mod- 
erate inspircr  of  dreams,  ever  since  mid-day.  Wine  enjoys 
only  a  conventional  popularity  with  serious  drinkers.  There 
is,  in  fact,  in  the  matter  of  inebriety,  white  magic  and  black 
magic;  wine  is  only  white  magic.  Grantaire  was  a  daring 
drinker  of  dreams.  The  blackness  of  a  terrible  fit  of  drunk- 
enness yawning  before  him,  far  from  arresting  him,  attracted 
him.  lie  had  abandoned  the  bottle  and  taken  to  the  beer- 
glass.  The  beer-glass  is  the  abyss.  Having  neither  opium  nor 
hashish  on  hand,  and  being  desirous  of  filling  his  brain  with 
twilight,  he  had  had  recourse  to  that  fearful  mixture  of 
brandy,  stout,  absinthe,  which  produces  the  most  terrible  of 
lethargies.  It  is  of  these  three  vapors,  beer,  brandy,  and  ab- 
sinthe, that  the  lead  of  the  soul  is  composed.  They  are  three 
grooms;  the  celestial  butterfly  is  drowned  in  them;  and  there 
are  formed  there  in  a  membranous  smoke,  vaguely  condensed 
into  the  wing  of  the  bat,  three  mute  furies,  Nightmare,  Xight, 
and  Death,  which  hover  about  the  slumbering  Psyche. 

Grantaire  had  not  yet  reached  that  lamentable  phase;  far 
from  it.  He  was  tremendously  gay,  and  Bossuet  and  Joly 
retorted.  They  clinked  glasses.  Grantaire  added  to  the  eccen- 
tric accentuation  of  words  and  ideas,  a  peculiarity  of  gesture; 
he  rested  his  left  fist  on  his  knee  with  dignity,  his  arm  form- 
ing a  right  angle,  and,  with  cravat  untied,  seated  astride  a 
stool,  his  full  glass  in  his  right  hand,  he  hurled  solemn  words 
at  the  big  maid-servant  Matelote: — 

"Let  the  doors  of  the  palace  be  thrown  open !  Let  every 
one  be  a  member  of  the  French  Academy  and  have  the  right 
to  embrace  Madame  Hucheloup.  Let  us  drink." 


394  SAINT-DENIS 

And  turning  to  Madame  Hucheloup,  he  added : — 

"Woman  ancient  and  consecrated  by  use,  draw  near  that  I 
may  contemplate  thee !" 

And  Joly  exclaimed : — 

"Matelote  and  Gibelotte,  dod't  gib  Grantaire  anything  more 
to  drink.  He  has  already  devoured,  since  this  bording,  in  wild 
prodigality,  two  francs  and  ninety-five  centibes." 

And  Grantaire  began  again : — 

"Who  has  been  unhooking  the  stars  without  my  permission, 
and  putting  them  on  the  table  in  the  guise  of  candles  ?" 

Bossuet,  though  very  drunk,  preserved  his  equanimity. 

He  was  seated  on  the  sill  of  the  open  window,  wetting  his 
back  in  the  falling  rain,  and  gazing  at  his  two  friends. 

All  at  once,  he  heard  a  tumult  behind  him,  hurried  foot- 
steps, cries  of  "To  arms  !"  He  turned  round  and  saw  in  the  Rue 
Saint-Denis,  at  the  end  of  the  Rue  de  la  Chanvrerie,  Enjolras 
passing,  gun  in  hand,  and  Gavroche  with  his  pistol,  Feuilly 
with  his  sword,  Courfeyrac  with  his  sword,  and  Jean  Prouvaire 
with  his  blunderbuss,  Combeferre  with  his  gun,  Bahorel  with 
his  gun,  and  the  whole  armed  and  stormy  rabble  which  was 
following  them. 

The  Rue  de  la  Chanvrerie  was  not  more  than  a  gunshot  long. 
Bossuet  improvised  a  speaking-trumpet  from  his  two  hands 
placed  around  his  mouth,  and  shouted : — 

"Courfeyrac !  Courfeyrac  !  Hohee  !" 

Courfeyrac  heard  the  shout,  caught  sight  of  Bossuet,  and 
advanced  a  few  paces  into  the  Rue  de  la  Chanvrerie,  shout- 
ing: "What  do  you  want?"  which  crossed  a  "Where  are  you 
going  ?" 

"To  make  a  barricade,"  replied  Courfeyrac. 

"Well,  here !    This  is  a  good  place  !    Make  it  here !" 

"That's  true,  Aigle,"  said  Courfeyrac. 

And  at  a  signal  from  Courfeyrac,  the  mob  flung  themselves 
into  the  Rue  de  la  Chanvrerie. 


CORINTHE  325 

CHAPTER   III 

NIGHT  BEGINS  TO  DESCEND  UPON  GRANTAIRB 

THE  spot  was,  in  fact,  admirably  adapted,  the  entrance  to 
the  street  widened  out,  the  other  extremity  narrowed  together 
into  a  pocket  without  exit.  Corinthe  created  an  obstacle,  the 
Rue  Mondetour  was  easily  barricaded  on  the  right  and  the 
left,  no  attack  was  possible  except  from  the  Rue  Saint-Denis, 
that  is  to  say,  in  front,  and  in  full  sight.  Bossuet  had  the 
comprehensive  glance  of  a  fasting  Hannibal. 

Terror  had  seized  on  the  whole  street  at  the  irruption  of 
the  mob.  There  was  not  a  passer-by  who  did  not  get  out 
of  sight.  In  the  space  of  a  flash  of  lightning,  in  the  rear,  to 
right  and  left,  shops,  stables,  area-doors,  windows,  blinds, 
attic  skylights,  shutters  of  every  description  were  closed,  from 
the  ground  floor  to  the  roof.  A  terrified  old  woman  fixed  a 
mattress  in  front  of  her  window  on  two  clothes-poles  for  dry- 
ing linen,  in  order  to  deaden  the  effect  of  musketry.  The 
wine-shop  alone  remained  open ;  and  that  for  a  very  good 
reason,  that  the  mob  had  rushed  into  it. — "Ah  my  God !  Ah 
my  God !"  sighed  Mame  Hucheloup. 

Bossuet  had  gone  down  to  meet  Courfcyrac. 

Joly,  who  had  placed  himself  at  the  window,  exclaimed: — 

"Courfeyrac,  you  ought  to  have  brought  an  umbrella.  You 
will  gatch  gold." 

In  the  meantime,  in  the  space  of  a  few  minutes,  twenty 
iron  bars  had  been  wrenched  from  the  grated  front  of  the 
wine-shop,  ten  fathoms  of  street  had  been  impaved ;  Gavroche 
and  Bahorel  had  seized  in  its  passage,  and  overturned,  the 
dray  of  a  lime-dealer  named  Anceau;  this  dray  contained 
three  barrels  of  lime,  which  they  placed  beneath  the  piles  of 
paving-stones :  Enjolras  raised  the  cellar  trap,  and  all  the 
widow  Ilucheloup's  empty  casks  were  used  to  flank  the  barrels 
of  lime;  Feuilly,  with  his  fingers  skilled  in  painting  the  deli- 
cate sticks  of  fans,  had  backed  up  the  barrels  and  the  dray 


326  8AIXT-DEXI8 

with  two  massive  heaps  of  blocks  of  rough  stone.  Blocks 
which  were  improvised  like  the  rest  and  procured  no  one 
knows  where.  The  beams  which  served  as  props  were  torn 
from  the  neighboring  house-fronts  and  laid  on  the  casks. 
When  Bossuet  and  Courfeyrac  turned  round,  half  the  street 
was  already  barred  with  a  rampart  higher  than  a  man.  There 
is  nothing  like  the  hand  of  the  populace  for  building  every- 
thing that  is  built  by  demolishing. 

Matelote  and  Gibelotte  had  mingled  with  the  workers. 
Gibelotte  went  and  came  loaded  with  rubbish.  Her  lassitude 
helped  on  the  barricade.  She  served  the  barricade  as  she 
would  have  served  wine,  with  a  sleepy  air. 

An  omnibus  with  two  white  horses  passed  the  end  of  the 
street. 

Bossuet  strode  over  the  paving-stones,  ran  to  it,  stopped 
the  driver,  made  the  passengers  alight,  offered  his  hand  to 
"the  ladies,"  dismissed  the  conductor,  and  returned,  leading 
the  vehicle  and  the  horses  by  the  bridle. 

"Omnibuses,"  said  he,  "do  not  pass  the  Corinthe.  Non  licet 
omnibus  adire  Corinthum." 

An  instant  later,  the  horses  were  unharnessed  and  went  off 
at  their  will,  through  the  Rue  Mondetour,  and  the  omnibus 
lying  on  its  side  completed  the  bar  across  the  street. 

Mame  Hucheloup,  quite  upset,  had  taken  refuge  in  the  first 
story. 

Her  eyes  were  vague,  and  stared  without  seeing  anything, 
and  she  cried  in  a  low  tone.  Her  terrified  shrieks  did  not  dare 
to  emerge  from  her  throat. 

"The  end  of  the  world  has  come,"  she  muttered. 

Joly  deposited  a  kiss  on  Mame  Hucheloup's  fat,  red, 
wrinkled  neck,  and  said  to  Grantaire:  "My  dear  fellow,  I 
have  always  regarded  a  woman's  neck  as  an  infinitely  delicate 
thing." 

But  Grantaire  attained  to  the  highest  regions  of  dithryamb. 
Matelote  had  mounted  to  the  first  floor  once  more,  Grantaire 
seized  her  round  her  waist,  and  gave  vent  to  long  bursts  of 
laughter  at  the  window. 


CORINTHE  397 

"Matelote  is  homely !"  he  cried :  "Matelote  is  of  a  dream 
of  ugliness !  Matelote  is  a  chimaera.  This  is  the  secret  of  her 
birth:  a  Gothic  Pygmalion,  who  was  making  gargoyles  for 
cathedrals,  fell  in  love  with  one  of  them,  the  most  horrible, 
one  fine  morning,  lie  besought  Love  to  give  it  life,  and  this 
produced  Matelote.  Look  at  her,  citizens !  She  has  chromate- 
of-lead-colored  hair,  like  Titian's  mistress,  and  she  is  a  good 
girl.  I  guarantee  that  she  will  fight  well.  Every  good  girl 
contains  a  hero.  As  for  Mother  Hucheloup,  she's  an  old  war- 
rior. Look  at  her  moustaches !  She  inherited  them  from  her 
husband.  A  hussar  indeed !  She  will  fight  too.  These  two 
alone  will  strike  terror  to  the  heart  of  the  banlieue.  Com- 
rades, we  shall  overthrow  the  government  as  true  as  there 
are  fifteen  intermediary  acids  between  margaric  acid  and 
formic  acid;  however,  that  is  a  matter  of  perfect 
indifference  to  me.  Gentlemen,  my  father  always  detested  me 
because  I  could  not  understand  mathematics.  I  understand 
only  love  and  liberty.  I  am  Grantaire,  the  good  fellow. 
Having  never  had  any  money,  I  never  acquired  the  habit  of 
it,  and  the  result  is  that  I  have  never  lacked  it;  but,  if  I  had 
been  rich,  there  would  have  been  no  more  poor  people !  You 
would  have  seen !  Oh,  if  the  kind  hearts  only  had  fat  purses, 
how  much  better  things  would  go!  I  picture  myself  Jesus 
Christ  with  Rothschild's  fortune !  How  much  good  he  would 
do!  Matelote,  embrace  me!  You  are  voluptuous  and  timid! 
You  have  cheeks  which  invite  the  kiss  of  a  sister,  and  lips 
which  claim  the  kiss  of  a  lover." 

"Hold  your  tongue,  you  cask !"  said  Courfeyrac. 

Grantaire  retorted : — 

"I  am  the  capitoul1  and  the  master  of  the  floral  games !" 

Enjolras,  who  was  standing  on  the  crest  of  the  barricade, 
gun  in  hand,  raised  his  beautiful,  austere  face.  Enjolras.  as 
the  reader  knows,  had  something  of  the  Spartan  and  of  the 
Puritan  in  his  composition.  He  would  have  perished  at 
Thermopyl^  with  Leonidas,  and  burned  at  Drogheda  with 
Cromwell. 

'Municipal  officer  of  Toulouse. 


308  SAINT-DENIS 

"Grantaire,"  he  shouted,  "go  get  rid  of  the  fumes  of  your 
wine  somewhere  else  than  here.  This  is  the  place  for  en- 
thusiasm, not  for  drunkenness.  Don't  disgrace  the  barri- 
cade !" 

This  angry  speech  produced  a  singular  effect  on  Grantaire. 
One  would  have  said  that  he  had  had  a  glass  of  cold  water 
flung  in  his  face.  He  seemed  to  be  rendered  suddenly  sober. 

He  sat  down,  put  his  elbows  on  a  table  near  the  window, 
looked  at  Enjolras  with  indescribable  gentleness,  and  said 
to  him : — 

"Let  me  sleep  here." 

"Go  and  sleep  somewhere  else,"  cried  Enjolras. 

But  Grantaire,  still  keeping  his  tender  and  troubled  eyes 
fixed  on  him,  replied : — 

"Let  me  sleep  here, — until  I  die." 

Enjolras  regarded  him  with  disdainful  eyes : — 

"Grantaire,  you  are  incapable  of  believing,  of  thinking,  of 
willing,  of  living,  and  of  dying." 

Grantaire  replied  in  a  grave  tone : — 

"You  will  see." 

He  stammered  a  few  more  unintelligible  words,  then  his 
head  fell  heavily  on  the  table,  and,  as  is  the  usual  effect  of 
the  second  period  of  inebriety,  into  which  Enjolras  had 
roughly  and  abruptly  thrust  him,  an  instant  later  he  had 
fallen  asleep. 


CHAPTER   IV 

AN  ATTEMPT  TO  CONSOLE  THE  WIDOW  HUCHELOUP 

BAIIOREL,  in  ecstasies  over  the  barricade,  shouted : — 

"Here's  the  street  in  its  low-necked  dress !  How  well  it 
looks !" 

Courfeyrac,  as  he  demolished  the  wine-shop  to  some  ex- 
tent, sought  to  console  the  widowed  proprietress. 

"Mother   Hucheloup,  weren't  you  complaining  the  other 


OORMTBE  309 

day  because  you  had  had  a  notice  served  on  you  for  infringing 
the  law,  because  Gibelotte  shook  a  counterpane  out  of  your 
window  ?" 

"Yes,  my  good  Monsieur  Courfeyrac.  Ah !  good  Heavens, 
are  you  going  to  put  that  table  of  mine  in  your  horror,  too? 
And  it  was  for  the  counterpane,  and  also  for  a  pot  of  flowers 
which  fell  from  the  attic  window  into  the  street,  that  the 
government  collected  a  fine  of  a  hundred  francs.  If  that  isn't 
an  abomination,  what  is  !" 

"Well,  Mother  Hucheloup,  we  are  avenging  you." 

Mother  Hucheloup  did  not  appear  to  understand  very 
clearly  the  benefit  which  she  was  to  derive  from  these  reprisals 
made  on  her  account.  She  was  satisfied  after  the  manner  of 
that  Arab  woman,  who,  having  received  a  box  on  the  ear  from 
her  husband,  went  to  complain  to  her  father,  and  cried  for 
vengeance,  saying:  "Father,  you  owe  my  husband  affront  for 
affront."  The  father  asked :  "On  which  cheek  did  you  receive 
the  blow?"  "On  the  left  cheek."  The  father  slapped  her 
right  cheek  and  said:  "Now  you  are  satisfied.  Go  tell  your 
husband  that  he  boxed  my  daughter's  ears,  and  that  I  have 
accordingly  boxed  his  wife's." 

The  rain  had  ceased.  Recruits  had  arrived.  Workmen  had 
brought  under  their  blouses  a  barrel  of  powder,  a  basket  con- 
taining bottles  of  vitriol,  two  or  three  carnival  torches,  and 
a  basket  filled  with  fire-pots,  "left  over  from  the  King's  fes- 
tival." This  festival  was  very  recent,  having  taken  place  on 
the  1st  of  May.  It  was  said  that  these  munitions  came  from 
a  grocer  in  the  Faubourg  Saint-Antoine  named  Pepin.  They 
smashed  the  only  street  lantern  in  the  Rue  de  la  Chanvrerie, 
the  lantern  corresponding  to  one  in  the  Rue  Saint-Denis,  and 
all  the  lanterns  in  the  surrounding  streets,  de  Mondetour,  du 
Cygne,  des  Precheurs,  and  de  la  Grande  and  de  la  Petite- 
Truanderie. 

Enjolras,  Combeferre,  and  Courfeyrac  directed  everything. 
Two  barricades  were  now  in  process  of  construction  at  once, 
both  of  them  resting  on  the  Corinthe  house  and  forming  a 
right  angle;  the  larger  shut  off  the  Rue  de  la  Chanvrerie,  the 


330  8AIXT  DEXIS 

other  closed  the  Rue  Mondetour,  on  the  side  of  the  Rue  de 
Cygne.  This  last  barricade,  which  was  very  narrow,  was  con- 
structed only  of  casks  and  paving-stones.  There  were  about 
fifty  workers  on  it ;  thirty  were  armed  with  guns;  for,  on  their 
way,  they  had  effected  a  wholesale  loan  from  an  armorer's 
shop. 

Nothing  could  be  more  bizarre  and  at  the  same  time  more 
motley  than  this  troop.  One  had  a  round-jacket,  a  cavalry 
sabre,  and  two  holster-pistols,  another  was  in  his  shirt-sleeves, 
with  a  round  hat,  and  a  powder-horn  slung  at  his  side,  a  third 
wore  a  plastron  of  nine  sheets  of  gray  paper  and  was  armed 
with  a  saddler's  awl.  There  was  one  who  was  shouting :  "Let 
us  exterminate  them  to  the  last  man  and  die  at  the  point 
of  our  bayonet."  This  man  had  no  bayonet.  Another  spread 
out  over  his  coat  the  cross-belt  and  cartridge-box  of  a  Na- 
tional Guardsman,  the  cover  of  the  cartridge-box  being  orna- 
mented with  this  inscription  in  red  worsted :  Public  Order. 
There  were  a  great  many  guns  bearing  the  numbers  of  the 
legions,  few  hats,  no  cravats,  many  bare  arms,  some  pikes. 
Add  to  this,  all  ages,  all  sorts  of  faces,  small,  pale  young  men, 
and  bronzed  longshoremen.  All  were  in  haste;  and  as  they 
helped  each  other,  they  discussed  the  possible  chances.  That 
they  would  receive  succor  about  three  o'clock  in  the  morning 
— that  they  were  sure  of  one  regiment,  that  Paris  would  rise. 
Terrible  sayings  with  which  was  mingled  a  sort  of  cordial 
joviality.  One  would  have  pronounced  them  brothers,  but 
they  did  not  know  each  other's  names.  Great  perils  have  this 
fine  characteristic,  that  they  bring  to  light  the  fraternity  of 
strangers.  A  fire  had  been  lighted  in  the  kitchen,  and  there 
they  were  engaged  in  moulding  into  bullets,  pewter  mugs., 
spoons,  forks,  and  all  the  brass  table-ware  of  the  establish- 
ment. In  the  midst  of  it  all,  they  drank.  Caps  and  buck- 
shot were  mixed  pell-mell  on  the  tables  with  glasses  of  wine. 
In  the  billiard-hall,  Mame  Hucheloup,  Matelote,  and  Gibe- 
lotte,  variously  modified  by  terror,  which  had  stupefied  one, 
rendered  another  breathless,  and  roused  the  third,  were  tear- 
ing up  old  dish-cloths  and  making  lint;  three  insurgents  were 


CORINTHE  331 

assisting  them,  three  bushy-haired,  jolly  blades  with  beards 
and  moustaches,  who  plucked  away  at  the  linen  with  the  fin- 
gers of  seamstresses  and  who  made  them  tremble. 

The  man  of  lofty  stature  whom  Courfoyrac,  Combeferre, 
and  Enjolras  had  observed  at  the  moment  when  he  joined  the 
mob  at  the  corner  of  the  Rue  des  Billettes,  was  at  work  on  the 
smaller  barricade  and  wa.3  making  himself  useful  there.  Gav- 
roche  was  working  on  the  larger  one.  As  for  the  young  man 
who  had  been  waiting  for  Courfeyrac  at  his  lodging?,  and  who 
had  inquired  for  M.  Marius.  he  had  disappeared  at  about  the 
time  when  the  omnibus  had  been  overturned. 

Gavroche,  completely  carried  away  and  radiant,  had  under- 
taken to  get  everything  in  readiness.  He  went,  came,  mounted, 
descended,  re-mounted,  whistled,  and  sparkled.  He  seemed  to 
be  there  for  the  encouragement  of  all.  Had  he  any  incentive? 
Yes,  certainly,  his  poverty;  had  he  wings?  yes,  certainly,  his 
joy.  Gavroche  was  a  whirlwind.  He  was  constantly  visible, 
he  was  incessantly  audible.  He  filled  the  air,  as  he  was  every- 
where at  once.  He  was  a  sort  of  almost  irritating  ubiquity ; 
no  halt  was  possible  with  him.  The  enormous  barricade  felt 
him  on  its  haunches.  He  troubled  the  loungers,  he  excited  the 
idle,  he  reanimated  the  weary,  he  grew  impatient  over  the 
thoughtful,  he  inspired  gayety  in  some,  and  breath  in  others, 
wrath  in  others,  movement  in  all,  now  pricking  a  student,  now 
biting  an  artisan;  he  alighted,  paused,  flew  off  again,  hovered 
over  the  tumult,  and  the  effort,  sprang  from  one  party  to 
another,  murmuring  and  humming,  and  harassed  the  whole 
company ;  a  fly  on  the  immense  revolutionary  coach. 

Perpetual  motion  was  in  his  little  arms  and  perpetual 
clamor  in  his  little  lungs. 

"Courage !  more  paving-stones !  more  casks !  more  ma- 
chines !  Where  are  you  now?  A  hod  of  plaster  for  me  to  stop 
this  hole  with !  Your  barricade  is  very  small.  It  must  be 
carried  up.  Put  everything  on  it,  fling  everything  there,  stick 
it  all  in.  Break  down  the  house.  A  barricade  is  Mother 
Gibou's  tea.  Hullo,  here's  a  glass  door." 

This  elicited  an  exclamation  from  the  workers. 


332  SAJ\TDE\I8 

"A  glass  door?  what  do  you  eipect  us  to  do  with  a  glass 
door,  tubercle  f" 

"Hercules  yourselves !"  retorted  Gavroche.  "A  glass  door 
is  an  excellent  thing  in  a  barricade.  It  does  not  prevent  an 
attack,  but  it  prevents  the  enemy  taking  it.  So  you've  never 
prigged  apples  over  a  wall  where  there  were  broken  bottles  ?  A 
glass  door  cuts  the  corns  of  the  National  Guard  when  they  try 
to  mount  on  the  barricade.  Pardi !  glass  is  a  treacherous  thing. 
Well,  you  haven't  a  very  wildly  lively  imagination,  comrades." 

However,  he  was  furious  over  his  triggerless  pistol.  He 
weut  from  one  to  another,  demanding:  "A  gun,  I  want  a  gun ! 
Why  don't  you  give  me  a  gun  ?"' 

"Give  you  a  gun !"  said  Combeferre. 

"Come  now!"  said  Gavroche.  "why  not?  I  had  one  in 
1830  when  we  had  a  dispute  with  Charles  X." 

Enjolras  shrugged  his  shoulders. 

"When  there  are  enough  for  the  men.  we  will  give  some  to 
the  children." 

Gavroche  wheeled  round  haughtily,  and  answered: — 

"If  you  are  killed  before  me,  I  shall  take  yours." 

"Gamin !"  said  Enjolras. 

"Greenhorn !"  said  Gavroche. 

A  dandy  who  had  lost  his  way  and  who  lounged  past  the  end 
of  the  street  created  a  diversion  !  Gavroche  shouted  to  him : — 

"Come  with  us.  young  fellow !  well  now,  don't  we  do  any- 
thing for  this  old  country  of  ours?" 

The  dandv  fled. 


CHAPTER    V 

PREPARATIONS 

THE  journals  of  the  day  which  said  that  that  nwrly  imprtg- 
nall?  slruciurt,  of  the  barricade  of  the  Rue  de  la  Chanvrerie. 
a=  they  call  it.  reached  to  the  level  of  the  first  floor,  were  mis- 
tak-:-n.  The  fact  is.  that  it  did  not  exceed  an  average  height  of 


333 

six  or  seven  feet.  It  was  built  in  such  a  manner  that  the  com- 
batants could,  at  their  will,  either  disappear  behind  it  or  domi- 
nate the  barrier  and  even  scale  its  crest  by  means  of  a  quad- 
ruple row  of  paving-stones  placed  on  top  of  each  other  and 
arranged  as  steps  in  the  interior.  On  the  outside,  the  front  of 
the  barricade,  composed  of  piles  of  paving-stones  and  casks 
bound  together  by  beams  and  planks,  which  were  entangled  in 
the  wheels  of  Anceau's  dray  and  of  the  overturned  omnibus, 
had  a  bristling  and  inextricable  aspect. 

An  aperture  large  enough  to  allow  a  man  to  pass  through 
had  been  made  between  the  wall  of  the  houses  and  the  extrem- 
ity of  the  barricade  which  was  furthest  from  the  wine-shop, 
so  that  an  exit  was  possible  at  this  point.  The  pole  of  the 
omnibus  was  placed  upright  and  held  up  with  ropes,  and  a 
red  flag,  fastened  to  this  pole,  floated  over  the  barricade. 

The  little  Mondetour  barricade,  hidden  behind  the  wine- 
shop building,  was  not  visible.  The  two  barricades  united 
formed  a  veritable  redoubt.  Enjolras  and  Courfeyrac  had  not 
thought  fit  to  barricade  the  other  fragment  of  the  Rue  Monde- 
tour  which  opens  through  the  Rue  des  Precheurs  an  issue  into 
the  Halles,  wishing,  no  doubt,  to  preserve  a  possible  communi- 
cation with  the  outside,  and  not  entertaining  much  fear  of 
an  attack  through  the  dangerous  and  difficult  street  of  the 
Rue  des  Precheurs. 

With  the  exception  of  this  issue  which  was  left  free,  and 
which  constituted  what  Folard  in  his  strategical  style  would 
have  termed  a  branch,  and  taking  into  account,  also,  the  narrow 
cutting  arranged  on  the  Rue  de  la  Chanvrerie,  the  interior  of 
the  barricade,  where  the  wine-shop  formed  a  salient  angle, 
presented  an  irregular  square,  closed  on  all  sides.  There 
existed  an  interval  of  twenty  paces  between  the  grand  barrier 
and  the  lofty  houses  which  formed  the  background  of  the 
street,  so  that  one  might  say  that  the  barricade  rested  on  these 
houses,  all  inhabited,  but  closed  from  top  to  bottom. 

All  this  work  was  performed  without  any  hindrance,  in  less 
than  an  hour,  and  without  this  handful  of  bold  men  seeing  a 
single  bear-skin  cap  or  a  single  bayonet  make  their  appearance. 


334  SAINT-DENIS 

The  very  bourgeois  who  still  ventured  at  this  hour  of  riot  to 
enter  the  Rue  Saint-Denis  cast  a  glance  at  the  Rue  de  la 
Chanvrerie,  caught  sight  of  the  barricade,  and  redoubled  their 
pace. 

The  two  barricades  being  finished,  and  the  flag  run  up,  a 
table  was  dragged  out  of  the  wine-shop ;  and  Courfeyrac 
mounted  on  the  table.  Enjolras  brought  the  square  coffer, 
and  Courfeyrac  opened  it.  This  coffer  was  filled  with  car- 
tridges. When  the  mob  saw  the  cartridges,  a  tremor  ran 
through  the  bravest,  and  a  momentary  silence  ensued. 

Courfeyrac  distributed  them  with  a  smile. 

Each  one  received  thirty  cartridges.  Many  had  powder,  and 
set  about  making  others  with  the  bullets  which  they  had  run. 
As  for  the  barrel  of  powder,  it  stood  on  a  table  on  one  side, 
near  the  door,  and  was  held  in  reserve. 

The  alarm  beat  which  ran  through  all  Paris,  did  not  cease, 
but  it  had  finally  come  to  be  nothing  more  than  a  monotonous 
noise  to  which  they  no  longer  paid  any  attention.  This  noise 
retreated  at  times,  and  again  drew  near,  with  melancholy 
undulations. 

They  loaded  the  guns  and  carbines,  all  together,  without 
haste,  with  solemn  gravity.  Enjolras  went  and  stationed  three 
sentinels  outside  the  barricades,  one  in  the  Rue  de  la  Chan- 
vrerie. the  second  in  the  Rue  des  Precheurs,  the  third  at  the 
corner  of  the  Rue  de  la  Petite  Truanderie. 

Then,  the  barricades  having  been  built,  the  posts  assigned, 
the  guns  loaded,  the  sentinels  stationed,  they  waited,  alone  in 
those  redoubtable  streets  through  which  no  one  passed  any 
longer,  surrounded  by  those  dumb  houses  which  seemed  dead 
and  in  which  no  human  movement  palpitated,  enveloped  in  the 
deepening  shades  of  twilight  which  was  drawing  on,  in  the 
midst  of  that  silence  through  which  something  could  be  felt 
advancing,  and  which  had  about  it  something  tragic  and 
terrifying,  isolated,  armed,  determined,  and  tranquil. 


CORIXTHE  335 

CHAPTER   VI 

WAITING 

DURING  those  hours  of  waiting,  what  did  they  do? 

We  must  needs  tell,  since  this  is  a  matter  of  history. 

While  the  men  made  bullets  and  the  women  lint,  while  a 
large  saucepan  of  melted  brass  and  lead,  destined  to  the  bullet- 
mould  smoked  over  a  glowing  brazier,  while  the  sentinels 
watched,  weapon  in  hand,  on  the  barricade,  while  Enjolras, 
whom  it  was  impossible  to  divert,  kept  an  eye  on  the  sentinels, 
Combeferre,  Courfeyrac,  Jean  Prouvaire,  Feuilly,  Bossuet, 
Joly,  Bahorel,  and  some  others,  sought  each  other  out  and 
united  as  in  the  most  peaceful  days  of  their  conversations  in 
their  student  life,  and,  in  one  corner  of  this  wine-shop  which 
had  been  converted  into  a  casement,  a  couple  of  paces  distant 
from  the  redoubt  which  they  had  built,  with  their  carbines 
loaded  and  primed  resting  against  the  backs  of  their  chairs, 
these  fine  young  fellows,  so  close  to  a  supreme  hour,  began 
to  recite  love  verses. 

What  verses  ?    These : — 

Vous  rappelez-vous  notre  douce  vie, 

Lorsquc  nous  e"tions  si  jeunes  tous  deux, 
Et  que  nous  n'avions  au  co-ur  d'autre  envie 

Que  d'etre  bien  mis  et  d'etre  amoureux, 

Lorsqu'en  ajoutant  votre  age  a  mon  age, 

Nous  ne  comptions  pas  ft  deux  quarante  ans, 

Et  que,  dans  notre  humble  et  petit  manage, 
Tout,  mCme  1'hiver,  nous  6tait  printempa? 

Beaux  jours!     Manuel  etait  fier  et  sage, 

Paris  s'asseyait  ft  de  saints  banquets, 
Foy  languit  la  foudre,  et  votre  corsage 

Avait  une  Opingle  ou  je  me  piquais. 

Tout   vous   contemplait.     Avocat   sans    causes, 

Quand  je  vous  menais  au  Prado  diner, 
Vous  etiez  jolie  au  point  que  les  roses 

Me  faisaient  1'effet  de  se  retourner. 


336  SAINT-DENIS 

Je  les  entendais  dire:  Est  elle  belle! 

Comme   elle   sent   bon!      Quels   cheveux   &   flots! 
Sous  son  mantelet  elle  cache  une  aile, 

Son  bonnet  charmant  est  4  peine  ecloa. 

J'errais  avec  toi,  pressant  ton  bras  souple. 

Les  passants  crovaient  que  1'amour  charm6 
Avait  marie",  dans  notre  heureux  couple, 

Le  doux  mois  d'avril  au  beau  mois  de  mai. 

Nous  vivions  caches,  contents,  porte  close, 
De"vorant  1'amour,  bon  fruit  de"fendu, 

Ma  bouche  n'avait  pas  dit  une  chose 
Que  de"ja  ton  cocur  avait  r<§pondu. 

La  Sorbonne  e"tait  1'endroit  bucolique 

Ou  je  t'adorais  du  soir  au  matin. 
C'est  ainsi  qu'une  aiue  amoureuse  applique 

La  carte  du  Tendre  au  pays  Latin. 

O  place  Maubert!   6  place  Dauphine! 

Quand,  dans  le  taudis  frais  et  printanier, 
Tu  tirais  ton  bas  sur  ton  jambe  fine, 

Je  voyais  un  astre  au  fond  du  grenier. 

J'ai  fort  lu  Platon,  mais  rien  ne  m'en  reste; 

Mieux  que  Malebranche  et  que  Lamennais, 
Tu  me  de*montrais  la  bonte"  celeste 

Avec  une  ileur  que  tu  me  donnais. 

Je  t'ob£issais,  tu  m'  e"tais  soumise; 

O  grenier  dorC!   te  lacer!  te  voir 
Aller  et  venir  des  1'aube  en  chemise, 

Mirant  ton  jeune  front  a  ton  vieux  miroir. 

Et  qui  done  pourrait  perde  la  me"moire 
De  ces  temps  d'aurore  et  de  firmament, 

De  rubans,  de  fleurs,  de  gaze  et  de  moire, 
Ou  1'amour  be"gaye  un  argot  charmant? 

Nos  jardins  £taient  un  pot  de  tulipe; 

Tu  masquais  la  vitre  avec  un  jupon; 
Je  prenais  le  bol  de  terre  de  pipe, 

Et  je  te  donnais  le  tasse  en  japon. 

Et  ces  grands  malheurs  qui   nous  faisaient  rire! 

Ton  manchon  brllle",  ton  boa  perdu! 
Et  ce  cher  portrait  du  divin  Shakespeare 

Qu'un  soir  pour  souper  nons  avons  vendul 


CORIXTIIE  337 

mcndiant  et  toi  charitable. 
Je  baisais  au  vol  tes  bras  frais  et  ronda. 
Dante  in  folio  nous  servait  de  table 

Four  manger  gatment  un  cent  de  marroni. 

La  premiere  fois  qu'en  mon  joyeux  bouge 

Je  pris  un  baiser  a  ton  levre  en  feu, 
Quand  tu  t'en  allais  de'coiffe'e  et  rouge, 

Je  restai  tout  pule  et  je  crua  en  Dieu! 

Te  rappelles-tu  nos  bonheurs  sans  nombre, 

Et  tons  ces  fichus  change's  en  chiffons? 
Oh  que  de  soupirs,  de  nos  ca-urs  pleins  d'ombre, 

Se  sont  envole's  dans  les  cieux  profonds!' 

'Do  you  remember  our  sweet  life,  when  we  were  both  so  young,  and 
when  we  had  no  other  desire  in  our  hearts  than  to  be  well  dressed  and 
in  love?  When,  by  adding  your  age  to  my  age,  we  could  not  count 
forty  years  between  us,  and  when,  in  our  humble  and  tiny  house- 
hold, everything  was  spring  to  us  even  in  winter.  Fair  days! 
Manuel  was  proud  and  wise,  Paris  sat  at  sacred  banquet*,  Foy 
launched  thunderbolts,  and  your  corsage  had  a  pin  on  which  I 
pricked  myself.  Everything  gazed  upon  you.  A  briefless  lawyer, 
when  1  took  you  to  the  Prado  to  dine,  you  were  so  beautiful  that 
the  roses  seemed  to  me  to  turn  round,  and  I  heard  them  say:  Is 
she  not  beautiful!  How  good  she  smells!  What  billowing  hair! 
Beneath  her  mantle  she  hides  a  wing.  Her  charming  bonnet  id 
hardly  unfolded.  I  wandered  with  thee,  pressing  thy  supple  arm. 
The  passers-by  thought  that  love  bewitched  had  wedded,  in  our 
happy  couple,  the  gentle  month  of  April  to  the  fair  month  of  May. 
We  lived  concealed,  content,  with  closed  doors,  devouring  love,  that 
sweet  forbidden  fruit.  My  mouth  had  not  uttered  a  thing  when  thy 
heart  had  already  responded.  The  Sorbonne  was  the  bucolic  spot 
where  I  adored  thee  from  eve  till  morn.  Tis  thus  that  an  amorous 
soul  applies  the  chart  of  the  Tender  to  the  Latin  country.  <) 
Place  Maubert!  O  Place  Dauphine!  When  in  the  fresh  spring- 
like hut  thou  didst  draw  thy  stocking  on  thy  delicate  leg,  I  saw 
a  star  in  the  depths  of  the  garret.  1  have  read  a  great  deal  of 
Plato,  but  nothing  of  it  remains  by  me;  better  than  Malebranehe 
and  then  Lamennais  thou  didst  demonstrate  to  me  celestial  irood- 


1  thee,  thou 
behold  thee 
t  thy  young 
1  forego  the 
f  llowcrs.  of 

gau/.e  and  of  moire,  when  love  stammers  a  charming  slang?  Our 
gardens  consisted  of  a  pot  of  tulips;  thou  didst  mask  the  window 
with  thy  petticoat;  I  took  the  earthenware  bowl  and  I  gave  thee 
the  Japanese  cup.  And  those  great  misfortunes  which  made  us 
laugh!  Thy  cuff  scorched,  thy  boa  lost!  And  that  dear  portrait  of 


ness  with  a  flower  which  thou  pa  vest  to  me.  I  obey( 
didst  submit  to  me;  oh  gilded  garret!  to  lace  thee!  t( 
going  and  coming  from  dawn  in  thy  chemise,  ga/.ing  : 
brow  in  thine  ancient  mirror!  And  who,  then,  woul 
memory  of  those  days  of  aurora  and  the  firmament,  < 


338  SAINT-DENIS 

The  hour,  the  spot,  these  souvenirs  of  youth  recalled,  a  few 
stars  which  began  to  twinkle  in  the  sky,  the  funeral  repose  of 
those  deserted  streets,  the  imminence  of  the  inexorable  adven- 
ture, which  was  in  preparation,  gave  a  pathetic  charm  to  these 
verses  murmured  in  a  low  tone  in  the  dusk  by  Jean  Prouvaire, 
who,  as  we  have  said,  was  a  gentle  poet. 

In  the  meantime,  a  lamp  had  been  lighted  in  the  small 
barricade,  and  in  the  large  one,  one  of  those  wax  torches  such 
as  are  to  be  met  with  on  Shrove-Tuesday  in  front  of  vehicles 
loaded  with  masks,  on  their  way  to  la  Courtille.  These 
torches,  as  the  reader  has  seen,  came  from  the  Faubourg 
Saint-Antoine. 

The  torch  had  been  placed  in  a  sort  of  cage  of  paving-stones 
closed  on  three  sides  to  shelter  it  from  the  wind,  and  disposed 
in  such  a  fashion  that  all  the  light  fell  on  the  flag.  The  street 
and  the  barricade  remained  sunk  in  gloom,  and  nothing  was  to 
be  seen  except  the  red  flag  formidably  illuminated  as  by  an 
enormous  dark-lantern. 

This  light  enhanced  the  scarlet  of  the  flag,  with  an  inde- 
scribable and  terrible  purple. 


CHAPTER   VII 

THE  MAN  RECRUITED  IN  THE  RUE  DES  BILLETTES 

NIGHT  was  fully  come,  nothing  made  its  appearance.  All 
that  they  heard  was  confused  noises,  and  at  intervals,  fusil- 
lades ;  but  these  were  rare,  badly  sustained  and  distant.  This 
respite,  which  was  thus  prolonged,  was  a  sign  that  the  Govern- 

the  divine  Shakespeare  which  we  sold  one  evening  that  we  might 
sup!  I  was  a  beggar  and  thou  wert  charitable.  I  kissed  thy  fresh 
round  arms  in  haste.  A  folio  Danto  served  us  as  a  table  on  which 
to  eat  merrily  a  centime's  worth  of  chestnuts.  The  first  time  that, 
in  my  joyous  den,  I  snatched  a  kiss  from  thy  fiery  lip,  when  thou 
wontest  forth,  dishevelled  and  blushing,  I  turned  deathly  pale  and 
I  believed  in  God.  Dost  thou  recall  our  innumerable  joys,  and  all 
those  fichus  changed  to  rags?  Oh!  what  sighs  from  our  hearts  full 
of  gloom  fluttered  forth  to  the  heavenly  depths! 


CORINTIIE  339 

ment  was  taking  its  time,  and  collecting  its  forces.  These  fifty 
men  were  waiting  for  sixty  thousand. 

Enjolras  felt  attacked  by  that  impatience  which  seizes  on 
strong  souls  on  the  threshold  of  redoubtable  events.  He  went 
in  search  of  Gavroche,  who  had  set  to  making  cartridges  in  the 
tap-room,  by  the  dubious  light  of  two  candles  placed  on  the 
counter  by  way  of  precaution,  on  account  of  the  powder  which 
was  scattered  on  the  tables.  These  two  candles  cast  no  gleam 
outside.  The  insurgents  had,  moreover,  taken  pains  not  to 
have  any  light  in  the  upper  stories. 

Gavroche  was  deeply  preoccupied  at  that  moment,  but  not 
precisely  with  his  cartridges.  The  man  of  the  Rue  des  Bil- 
lettes  had  just  entered  the  tap-room  and  had  seated  himself 
at  the  table  which  was  the  least  lighted.  A  musket  of  large 
model  had  fallen  to  his  share,  and  he  held  it  between  his 
legs.  Gavroche.  who  had  been,  up  to  that  moment,  dis- 
tracted by  a  hundred  "amusing"  things,  had  not  even  seen 
this  man. 

When  he  entered,  Gavroche  followed  him  mechanically  with 
his  eyes,  admiring  his  gun ;  then,  all  at  once,  when  the  man 
was  seated,  the  street  urchin  sprang  to  his  feet.  Any  one  who 
had  spied  upon  that  man  up  to  that  moment,  would  have  seen 
that  he  was  observing  everything  in  the  barricade  and  in  the 
band  of  insurgents,  with  singular  attention;  but,  from  the 
moment  when  he  had  entered  this  room,  he  had  fallen  into  a 
sort  of  brown  study,  and  no  longer  seemed  to  see  anything 
that  was  going  on.  The  gamin  approached  this  pensive 
personage,  and  began  to  step  around  him  on  tiptoe,  as  one 
walks  in  the  vicinity  of  a  person  whom  one  is  afraid  of  waking. 
At  the  same  time,  over  his  childish  countenance,  which  was, 
at  once  so  impudent  and  so  serious,  so  giddy  and  so  profound, 
so  gay  and  so  heart-breaking,  passed  all  those  grimaces  of  an 
old  man  which  signify :  Ah  bah  !  impossible  !  My  sight  is  bad  ! 
I  am  dreaming!  can  this  be?  no,  it  is  not !  but  yos !  why.  no! 
etc.  Gavroche  balanced  on  his  heels,  clenched  both  fists  in  his 
pockets,  moved  his  neck  around  like  a  bird,  expended  in  a 
gigantic  pout  all  the  sagacity  of  his  lower  lip.  He  was 


340  SAINT-DENIS 

astounded,  uncertain,  incredulous,  convinced,  dazzled.  He 
had  the  mien  of  the  chief  of  the  eunuchs  in  the  slave  mart, 
discovering  a  Venus  among  the  blowsy  females,  and  the  air  of 
an  amateur  recognizing  a  Raphael  in  a  heap  of  daubs.  His 
whole  being  was  at  work,  the  instinct  which  scents  out,  and 
the  intelligence  which  combines.  It  was  evident  that  a  great 
event  had  happened  in  Gavroche's  life. 

It  was  at  the  most  intense  point  of  this  preoccupation  that 
Enjolras  accosted  him. 

"You  are  small,"  said  Enjolras,  "you  will  not  be  seen.  Go 
out  of  the  barricade,  slip  along  close  to  the  houses,  skirmish 
about  a  bit  in  the  streets,  and  come  back  and  tell  me  what  is 
going  on." 

Gavroche  raised  himself  on  his  haunches. 

"So  the  little  chaps  are  good  for  something!  that's  very 
lucky  !  I'l  go !  In  the  meanwhile,  trust  to  the  little  fellows, 
and  distrust  the  big  ones."  And  Gavroche,  raising  his  head 
and  lowering  his  voice,  added,  as  he  indicated  the  man  of  the 
Rue  des  Billettes: — 

"Do  you  see  that  big  fellow  there?" 

"Well?" 

"He's  a  police  spy." 

"Are  you  sure  of  it  ?" 

"It  isn't  two  weeks  since  he  pulled  me  off  the  cornice  of  the 
Port  Royal,  where  I  was  taking  the  air,  by  my  ear." 

Enjolras  hastily  quitted  the  urchin  and  murmured  a  few 
words  in  a  very  low  tone  to  a  longshoreman  from  the  wine- 
docks  who  chanced  to  be  at  hand.  The  man  left  the  room,  and 
returned  almost  immediately,  accompanied  by  three  others. 
The  four  men,  four  porters  with  broad  shoulders,  went  and 
placed  themselves  without  doing  anything  to  attract  his  atten- 
tion, behind  the  table  on  which  the  man  of  the  Rue  des  Bil- 
lettes was  leaning  with  his  elbows.  They  were  evidently  ready 
to  hurl  themselves  upon  him. 

Then  Enjolras  approached  the  man  and  demanded  o' 
him: — 

"Who  are  you?" 


CORINTHE  341 

At  this  abrupt  query,  the  man  started.  He  plunged  his  gaze 
deep  into  Enjolras'  clear  eyes  and  appeared  to  grasp  the 
latter's  meaning.  He  smiled  with  a  smile  than  which  nothing 
more  disdainful,  more  energetic,  and  more  resolute  could  be 
seen  in  the  world,  and  replied  with  haughty  gravity: — 

"I  see  what  it  is.    Well,  yes !" 

"You  are  a  police  spy?" 

"I  am  an  agent  of  the  authorities." 

"And  your  name?" 

"Javert." 

Enjolras  made  a  sign  to  the  four  men.  In  the  twinkling  of 
an  eye,  before  Javert  had  time  to  turn  round,  he  was  collared, 
thrown  down,  pinioned  and  searched. 

They  found  on  him  a  little  round  card  pasted  between  two 
pieces  of  glass,  and  bearing  on  one  side  the  arms  of  France, 
engraved,  and  with  this  motto :  Supervision  and  vigilance,  and 
on  the  other  this  note:  "JAVEUT,  inspector  of  police,  aged 
fifty-two,"  and  the  signature  of  the  Prefect  of  Police  of  that 
day,  M.  Gisquet. 

Besides  this,  he  had  his  watch  and  his  purse,  which  con- 
tained several  gold  pieces.  They  left  him  his  purse  and  his 
watch.  Under  the  watch,  at  the  bottom  of  his  fob,  they  felt 
and  seized  a  paper  in  an  envelope,  which  Enjolras  unfolded, 
and  on  which  he  read  these  five  lines,  written  in  the  very 
hand  of  the  Prefect  of  Police: — 

"As  soon  as  his  political  mission  is  accomplished,  Inspector 
Javert  will  make  sure,  by  special  supervision,  whether  it  is 
true  that  the  malefactors  have  instituted  intrigues  on  the 
right  bank  of  the  Seine,  near  the  Jena  bridge." 

The  search  ended,  they  lifted  Javert  to  his  feet,  bound  his 
arms  behind  hi?  back,  and  fastened  him  to  that  celebrated 
post  in  the  middle  of  the  room  which  had  formerly  given  the 
wine-shop  its  name. 

Gavroche,  who  had  looked  on  at  the  whole  of  this  scene  and 
had  approved  of  everything  with  a  silent  toss  of  his  head, 
stepped  up  to  Javert  and  said  to  him  :— 

"It's  the  mouse  who  has  caught  the  cat." 


342  8AIXT-DENIB 

All  this  was  so  rapidly  executed,  that  it  was  all  over  when 
those  about  the  wine-shop  noticed  it. 

Javert  had  not  uttered  a  single  cry. 

At  the  sight  of  Javert  bound  to  the  post.  Courfeyrac,  Bos- 
suet,  Joly,  Combeferre,  and  the  men  scattered  over  the  two 
barricades  came  running  up_ 

Javert,  with  his  back  to  the  post,  and  so  surrounded  with 
ropes  that  he  could  not  make  a  movement,  raised  his  head 
with  the  intrepid  serenity  of  the  man  who  has  never  lied. 

"He  is  a  police  spy/'  said  Enjolras. 

And  turning  to  Javert:  "You  will  be  shot  ten  minutes 
before  the  barricade  is  taken." 

Javert  replied  in  his  most  imperious  tone:-  — 

"Why  not  at  once  ?" 

"We  are  saving  our  powder." 

"Then  finish  the  business  with  a  blow  from  a  knife." 

"Spy,"  said  the  handsome  Enjolras,  "we  are  judges  and  not 
assassins." 

Then  he  called  Gavroche : — 

"Here  you  !  go  about  your  business  !    Do  what  I  told  you  !'* 

"I'm  going !"  cried  Gavroche. 

And  halting  as  he  was  on  the  point  of  setting  out : — 

"By  the  way,  you  will  give  me  his  gun !"  and  he  added :  "1 
leave  you  the  musician,  but  I  want  the  clarionet." 

The  gamin  made  the  military  salute  and  passed  gayly 
through  the  opening  in  the  large  barricade. 


CHAPTER   VIII 

MANY    INTERROGATION    POINTS    WITH    REGARD    TO    A    CERTAIN 
LE  CABUC  WHOSE  NAME  MAY  NOT  HAVE  BEEN  LE  CABUC 

THE  tragic  picture  which  we  have  undertaken  would  not  be 
complete,  the  reader  would  not  see  those  grand  moments  of 
social  birth-pangs  in  a  revolutionary  birth,  which  contain  con- 
vulsion mingled  with  effort,  in  their  exact  and  real  relief, 


CORINTHE  343 

were  we  to  omit,  in  the  sketch  here  outlined,  an  incident  full 
of  epic  and  savage  horror  which  occurred  almost  immediately 
after  Gavroche's  departure. 

Mobs,  as  the  reader  knows,  are  like  a  snowball,  and  collect 
as  they  roll  along,  a  throng  of  tumultuous  men.  These  men 
do  not  ask  each  other  whence  they  come.  Among  the  passers- 
by  who  had  joined  the  rabble  led  by  Enjolras,  Combeferre,  and 
Courfeyrac,  there  had  been  a  person  wearing  the  jacket  of  a 
street  porter,  which  was  very  threadbare  on  the  shoulders,  who 
gesticulated  and  vociferated,  and  who  had  the  look  of  a 
drunken  savage.  This  man,  whose  name  or  nickname  was 
Le  Cabuc,  and  who  was,  moreover,  an  utter  stranger  to  those 
who  pretended  to  know  him,  was  very  drunk,  or  assumed  the 
appearance  of  being  so,  and  had  seated  himself  with  several 
others  at  a  table  which  they  had  dragged  outside  of  the  wine- 
shop. This  Cabuc,  while  making  those  who  vied  with  him 
drunk,  seemed  to  be  examining  with  a  thoughtful  air  the  large 
house  at  the  extremity  of  the  barricade,  whose  five  stories 
commanded  the  whole  street  and  faced  the  Rue  Saint-Denis. 
All  at  once  he  exclaimed: — 

"Do  you  know,  comrades,  it  is  from  that  house  yonder  that 
we  must  fire.  When  we  are  at  the  windows,  the  deuce  is  in  it 
if  any  one  can  advance  into  the  street !" 

"Yes,  but  the  house  is  closed,"  said  one  of  the  drinkers. 

"Let  us  knock !" 

"They  will  not  open/' 

"Let  us  break  in  the  door !" 

Le  Cabuc  runs  to  the  door,  which  had  a  very  massive 
knocker,  and  knocks.  The  door  opens  not.  He  strikes  a 
second  blow.  No  one  answers.  A  third  stroke.  The  same 
silence. 

"Is  there  any  one  here?"  shouts  Cabuc. 

Nothing  stirs. 

Then  he  seizes  a  gun  and  begins  to  batter  the  door  with  the 
butt  end. 

It  was  an  ancient  alley  door,  low,  vaulted,  narrow,  solid, 
entirely  of  oak,  lined  on  the  inside  with  a  sheet  of  iron  and 


344  SA1XT-DENIS 

iron  stays,  a  genuine  prison  postern.  The  blows  from  the  butt 
end  of  the  gun  made  the  house  tremble,  but  did  not  shake  the 
door. 

Nevertheless,  it  is  probable  that  the  inhabitants  were  dis- 
turbed, for  a  tiny,  square  window  was  finally  seen  to  open  on 
the  third  story,  and  at  this  aperture  appeared  the  reverend  and 
terrified  face  of  a  gray-haired  old  man,  who  was  the  porter, 
and  who  held  a  candle. 

The  man  who  was  knocking  paused. 

"Gentlemen,"  said  the  porter,  "what  do  you  want?" 

"Open !"  said  Cabuc. 

"That  cannot  be,  gentlemen." 

"Open,  nevertheless." 

"Impossible,  gentlemen." 

Le  Cabuc  took  his  gun  and  aimed  at  the  porter;  but  as  he 
was  below,  and  as  it  was  very  dark,  the  porter  did  not  see  him. 

"Will  you  open,  yes  or  no?" 

"No,  gentlemen." 

"Do  you  say  no?" 

"I   say  no,  my  good — " 

The  porter  did  not  finish.  The  shot  was  fired;  the  ball 
entered  under  his  chin  and  came  out  at  the  nape  of  his  neck, 
after  traversing  the  jugular  vein. 

The  old  man  fell  back  without  a  sigh.  The  candle  fell  and 
was  extinguished,  and  nothing  more  was  to  be  seen  except  a 
motionless  head  lying  on  the  sill  of  the  small  window,  and  a 
little  whitish  smoke  which  floated  off  towards  the  roof. 

"There !"  said  Le  Cabuc,  dropping  the  butt  end  of  his  gun 
to  the  pavement. 

lie  had  hardly  uttered  this  word,  when  he  felt  a  hand  laid 
on  his  shoulder  with  the  weight  of  an  eagle's  talon,  and  he 
heard  a  voice  saying  to  him : — 

"On  your  knees." 

The  murderer  turned  round  and  saw  before  him  Enjolras' 
cold,  white  face. 

Enjolras  held  a  pistol  in  his  hand. 

He  had  hastened  up  at  the  sound  of  the  discharge. 


CORIXTHE  345 

He  had  seized  Cabuc's  collar,  blouse,  shirt,  and  suspender 
with  his  left  hand. 

"On  your  knees !"  he  repeated. 

And,  with  an  imperious  motion,  the  frail  young  man  of 
twenty  years  bent  the  thickset  and  sturdy  porter  like  a  reed, 
and  brought  him  to  his  knees  in  the  mire. 

Le  Cabuc  attempted  to  resist,  but  he  seemed  to  have  been 
seized  by  a  superhuman  hand. 

Enjolras,  pale,  with  bare  neck  and  dishevelled  hair,  and  his 
woman's  face,  had  about  him  at  that  moment  something  of  the 
antique  Themis.  His  dilated  nostrils,  his  downcast  eyes,  gave 
to  his  implacable  Greek  profile  that  expression  of  wrath  and 
that  expression  of  Chastity  which,  as  the  ancient  world  viewed 
the  matter,  befit  Justice. 

The  whole  barricade  hastened  up,  then  all  ranged  them- 
selves in  a  circle  at  a  distance,  feeling  that  it  was  impossible 
to  utter  a  word  in  the  presence  of  the  thing  which  they  were 
about  to  behold. 

Le  Cabuc,  vanquished,  no  longer  tried  to  struggle,  and 
trembled  in  every  limb. 

Enjolras  released  him  and  drew  out  his  watch. 

"Collect  yourself,"  said  he.  "Think  or  pray.  You  have 
one  minute." 

"Mercy !"  murmured  the  murderer ;  then  he  dropped  his 
head  and  stammered  a  few  inarticulate  oaths. 

Enjolras  never  took  his  eyes  off  of  him  :  he  allowed  a  minute 
to  pass,  then  he  replaced  his  watch  in  his  fob.  That  done,  he 
grasped  Le  Cabuc  by  the  hair,  as  the  latter  coiled  himself  into 
a  ball  at  his  knees  and  shrieked,  and  placed  the  muzzle  of  the 
pistol  to  his  ear.  Many  of  those  intrepid  men,  who  had  so 
tranquilly  entered  upon  the  most  terrible  of  adventures, 
turned  aside  their  heads. 

An  explosion  was  heard,  the  assassin  fell  to  the  pavement 
face  downwards. 

Enjolras  straightened  himself  up,  and  cast  a  convinced  and 
severe  glance  around  him.  Then  he  spurned  the  corpse  with 
his  foot  and  said : — 


346  SAINT-DENIS 

"Throw  that  outside." 

Three  men  raised  the  body  of  the  unhappy  wretch,  which 
was  still  agitated  by  the  last  mechanical  convulsions  of  the 
life  that  had  fled,  and  flung  it  over  the  little  barricade  into 
the  Eue  Mondetour. 

Enjolras  was  thoughtful.  It  is  impossible  to  say  what 
grandiose  shadows  slowly  spread  over  his  redoubtable  serenity. 
All  at  once  he  raised  his  voice. 

A  silence  fell  upon  them. 

"Citizens,"  said  Enjolras,  "what  that  man  did  is  frightful, 
what  I  have  done  is  horrible.  He  killed,  therefore  I  killed 
him.  I  had  to  do  it,  because  insurrection  must  have  its  dis- 
cipline. Assassination  is  even  more  of  a  crime  here  than 
elsewhere;  we  are  under  the  eyes  of  the  Revolution,  we 
are  the  priests  of  the  Republic,  we  are  the  victims  of 
duty,  and  must  not  be  possible  to  slander  our  combat. 
I  have,  therefore,  tried  that  man,  and  condemned  him  to 
death.  As  for  myself,  constrained  as  I  am  to  do  what  I 
have  done,  and  yet  abhorring  it,  I  have  judged  myself 
also,  and  you  shall  soon  see  to  what  I  have  condemned 
myself." 

Those  who  listened  to  him  shuddered. 

"We  will  share  thy  fate,"  cried  Combeferre. 

"So  be  it,"  replied  Enjolras.  "One  word  more.  In  exe- 
cuting this  man,  I  have  obeyed  necessity ;  but  necessity  is  a 
monster  of  the  old  world,  necessity's  name  is  Fatality.  Now, 
the  law  of  progress  is,  that  monsters  shall  disappear  before  the 
angels,  and  that  Fatality  shall  vanish  before  Fraternity.  It  is 
a  bad  moment  to  pronounce  the  word  love.  No  matter,  I  tlo 
pronounce  it.  And  I  glorify  it.  Love,  the  future  is  thine. 
Death,  I  make  use  of  thee,  but  I  hate  thee.  Citizens,  in  the 
future  there  will  be  neither  darkness  nor  thunderbolts  ;  neither 
ferocious  ignorance,  nor  bloody  retaliation.  As  there  will  be 
no  more  Satan,  there  will  be  no  more  Michael.  In  the  future 
no  one  will  kill  any  one  else,  the  earth  will  beam  with  radi- 
ance, the  human  race  will  love.  The  day  will  come,  citizens, 
when  all  will  be  concord,  harmony,  light,  joy  and  life;  it 


CORINTHE  347 

will  come,  and  it  is  in  order  that  it  may  come  that  we  are 
about  to  die." 

Enjolras  ceased.  His  virgin  lips  closed;  and  he  remained 
for  some  time  standing  on  the  spot  where  he  had  shed  blood, 
in  marble  immobility.  His  staring  eye  caused  those  about  him 
to  speak  in  low  tones. 

Jean  Prouvaire  and  Combeferre  pressed  each  other's  hands 
silently,  and,  leaning  against  each  other  in  an  angle  of  the 
barricade,  they  watched  with  an  admiration  in  which  there  was 
some  compassion,  that  grave  young  man,  executioner  and 
priest,  composed  of  light,  like  crystal,  and  also  of  rock. 

Let  us  say  at  once  that  later  on,  after  the  action,  when  the 
bodies  were  taken  to  the  morgue  and  searched,  a  police  agent's 
card  was  found  on  Le  Cabuc.  The  author  of  this  book  had  in 
his  hands,  in  1848,  the  special  report  on  this  subject  made  to 
the  Prefect  of  Police  in  1832. 

We  will  add,  that  if  we  are  to  believe  a  tradition  of  the 
police,  which  is  strange  but  probably  well  founded,  Le  Cabuc 
was  Claquesous.  The  fact  is,  that  dating  from  the  death  of 
Le  Cabuc,  there  was  no  longer  any  question  of  Claquesous. 
Claquesous  had  nowhere  left  any  trace  of  his  disappearance ; 
he  would  seem  to  have  amalgamated  himself  with  the  invisible. 
His  life  had  been  all  shadows,  his  end  was  night. 

The  whole  insurgent  group  was  still  under  the  influence  of 
the  emotion  of  that  tragic  case  which  had  been  so  quickly 
tried  and  so  quickly  terminated,  when  Courfeyrac  again  be- 
held on  the  barricade,  the  small  young  man  who  had  inquired 
of  him  that  morning  for  Marius. 

This  lad,  who  had  a  bold  and  reckless  air,  had  come  by 
night  to  join  the  insurgents. 


BOOK  THIRTEENTH.— MARIUS  ENTERS  THE 
SHADOW 

CHAPTER   I 

FROM   THE   RUE    PLUMET   TO    THE    QUARTIER   SAINT-DENIS 

THE  voice  which  had  summoned  Marius  through  the  twi- 
light to  the  barricade  of  the  Rue  de  la  Chanvrerie,  had  pro- 
duced on  him  the  effect  of  the  voice  of  destiny.  He  wished 
to  die;  the  opportunity  presented  itself;  he  knocked  at  the 
door  of  the  tomb,  a  hand  in  the  darkness  offered  him  the  key. 
These  melancholy  openings  which  take  place  in  the  gloom 
before  despair,  are  tempting.  Marius  thrust  aside  the  bar 
which  had  so  often  allowed  him  to  pass,  emerged  from  the 
garden,  and  said :  "I  will  go." 

Mad  with  grief,  no  longer  conscious  of  anything  fixed  or 
solid  in  his  brain,  incapable  of  accepting  anything  thenceforth 
of  fate  after  those  two  months  passed  in  the  intoxication  of 
youth  and  love,  overwhelmed  at  once  by  all  the  reveries  of 
despair,  he  had  but  one  desire  remaining,  to  make  a  speedy 
end  of  all. 

He  set  out  at  rapid  pace.  He  found  himself  most  oppor- 
tunely armed,  as  he  had  Javert's  pistols  with  him. 

The  young  man  of  whom  he  thought  that  he  had  caught  a 
glimpse,  had  vanished  from  his  sight  in  the  street. 

Marius,  who  had  emerged  from  the  Rue  Plumet  by  the 
boulevard,  traversed  the  Esplanade  and  the  bridge  of  the 
Invalides,  the  Champs  filysees,  the  Place  Louis  XV.,  and 
reached  the  Rue  de  Rivoli.  The  shops  were  open  there,  the 
gas  was  burning  under  the  arcades,  women  were  making  their 
purchases  in  the  stalls,  people  were  eating  ices  in  the  Cafe 


MARIU8   ENTEKS    THE   KllADOW  ,349 

Laiter,  and  nibbling  small  cakes  at  the  English  pastry-cook's 
shop.  Only  a  few  posting-chaises  were  setting  out  at  a  gallop 
from  the  Hotel  dos  Princes  and  the  Hotel  Meurice. 

Marius  entered  the  Rue  Saint-Honore  through  the  Passage 
Delorme.  There  the  shops  were  closed,  the  merchants  were 
chatting  in  front  of  their  half-open  doors,  people  were  walk- 
ing about,  the  street  lanterns  were  lighted,  beginning  with 
the  first  floor,  all  the  windows  were  lighted  as  usual.  There 
was  cavalry  on  the  Place  du  Palais-Royal. 

Marius  followed  the  Rue  Saint-Honore.  In  proportion  as 
he  left  the  Palais-Royal  behind  him,  there  were  fewer  lighted 
windows,  the  shops  were  fast  shut,  no  one  was  chatting  on 
the  thresholds,  the  street  grew  sombre,  and,  at  the  same  time, 
the  crowd  increased  in  density.  For  the  passers-by  now 
amounted  to  a  crowd.  No  one  could  be  seen  to  speak  in  this 
throng,  and  yet  there  arose  from  it  a  dull,  deep  murmur. 

Near  the  fountain  of  the  Arbre-Sec,  there  were  "assem- 
blages" motionless  and  gloomy  groups  which  were  to  those 
who  went  and  came  as  stones  in  the  midst  of  running  water. 

At  the  entrance  to  the  Rue  des  Prouvaires,  the  crowd  no 
longer  walked.  It  formed  a  resisting,  massive,  solid,  com- 
pact, almost  impenetrable  block  of  people  who  were  huddled 
together,  and  conversing  in  low  tones.  There  were  hardly 
any  black  coats  or  round  hats  now,  but  smock  frocks,  blouses, 
caps,  and  bristling  and  cadaverous  heads.  This  multitude 
undulated  confusedly  in  the  nocturnal  gloom.  Its  whisper- 
ings had  the  hoarse  accent  of  a  vibration.  Although  not  one 
of  them  was  walking,  a  dull  trampling  was  audible  in  the 
mire.  Beyond  this  dense  portion  of  the  throng,  in  the  Rue  du 
Roule,  in  the  Rue  des  Prouvaires,  and  in  the  extension  of  the 
Rue  Saint-Honore,  there  was  no  longer  a  single  window  in 
which  a  candle  was  burning.  Only  the  solitary  and  dimin- 
ishing rows  of  lanterns  could  be  seen  vanishing  into  the  street 
in  the  distance.  The  lanterns  of  that  date  resembled  large 
red  stars,  hanging  to  ropes,  and  shed  upon  the  pavement  a 
shadow  which  had  the  form  of  a  huge  spider.  These  streets 
were  not  deserted.  There  could  be  descried  piles  of  guns, 


350  8AI\T-DEX18 

moving  bayonets,  and  troops  bivouacking.  No  curious  ob- 
server passed  that  limit.  There  circulation  ceased.  There 
the  rabble  ended  and  the  army  began. 

Mar i us  willed  with  the  will  of  a  man  who  hopes  no  more. 
He  had  been  summoned,  he  must  go.  He  found  a  means  to 
traverse  the  throng  and  to  pass  the  bivouac  of  the  troops,  he 
shunned  the  patrols,  he  avoided  the  sentinels.  He  made  a 
circuit,  reached  the  Rue  de  Bethisy,  and  directed  his  course 
towards  the  Halles.  At  the  corner  of  the  Rue  des  Bourdon- 
nais,  there  were  no  longer  any  lanterns. 

After  having  passed  the  zone  of  the  crowd,  he  had  passed 
the  limits  of  the  troops ;  he  found  himself  in  something  start- 
ling. There  was  no  longer  a  passer-by,  no  longer  a  soldier, 
no  longer  a  light,  there  was  no  one ;  solitude,  silence,  night,  I 
know  not  what  chill  which  seized  hold  upon  one.  Entering 
a  street  was  like  entering  a  cellar. 

He  continued  to  advance. 

He  took  a  few  steps.  Some  one  passed  close  to  him  at  a 
run.  Was  it  a  man?  Or  a  woman?  Were  there  many  of 
them  ?  he  could  not  have  told.  It  had  passed  and  vanished. 

Proceeding  from  circuit  to  circuit,  he  reached  a  lane  which 
he  judged  to  be  the  Rue  de  la  Poterie ;  near  the  middle  of  this 
street,  he  came  in  contact  with  an  obstacle.  He  extended 
his  hands.  It  was  an  overturned  wagon;  his  foot  recognized 
pools  of  water,  gullies,  and  paving-stones  scattered  and  piled 
up.  A  barricade  had  been  begun  there  and  abandoned.  He 
climbed  over  the  stones  and  found  himself  on  the  other  side  of 
the  barrier.  He  walked  very  near  the  street-posts,  and 
guided  himself  along  the  walls  of  the  houses.  A  little  beyond 
the  barricade,  it  seemed  to  him  that  he  could  make  out  some- 
thing white  in  front  of  him.  He  approached,  it  took  on  a 
form.  It  was  two  white  horses;  the  horses  of  the  omnibus 
harnessed  by  Bossuet  in  the  morning,  who  had  been  straying 
at  random  all  day  from  street  to  street,  and  had  finally  halted 
there,  with  the  weary  patience  of  brutes  who  no  more  under- 
stand the  actions  of  men,  than  man  understands  the  actions  of 
Providence. 


MARIUS   ENTERS   THE   SHADOW  35 ± 

Marius  left  the  horses  behind  him.  As  he  was  approaching 
a  street  which  seemed  to  him  to  be  the  Rue  du  Contrat-Social, 
a  shot  coming  no  one  knows  whence,  and  traversing  the  dark- 
ness at  random,  whistled  close  by  him,  and  the  bullet  pierced 
a  brass  shaving-dish  suspended  above  his  head  over  a  hair- 
dresser's shop.  This  pierced  shaving-dish  was  still  to  be  seen 
in  1848,  in  the  Rue  du  Contrat-Social,  at  the  corner  of  the 
pillars  of  the  market. 

This  shot  still  betokened  life.  From  that  instant  forth  he 
encountered  nothing  more. 

The  whole  of  this  itinerary  resembled  a  descent  of  black 
steps. 

Nevertheless,  Marius  pressed  forward. 


CHAPTER   II 

AN  OWL'S  VIEW  OF  PARIS 

A  BEING  who  could  have  hovered  over  Paris  that  night  with 
the  wing  of  the  bat  or  the  owl  would  have  had  beneath  his  eyes 
a  gloomy  spectacle. 

All  that  old  quarter  of  the  Halles,  which  is  like  a  city 
within  a  city,  through  which  run  the  Rues  Saint-Denis  and 
Saint-Martin,  where  a  thousand  lanes  cross,  and  of  which  the 
insurgents  had  made  their  redoubt  and  their  stronghold, 
would  have  appeared  to  him  like  a  dark  and  enormous  cavity 
hollowed  out  in  the  centre  of  Paris.  There  the  glance  fell 
into  an  abyss.  Thanks  to  the  broken  lanterns,  thanks  to  the 
closed  windows,  there  all  radiance,  all  life,  all  sound,  all 
movement  ceased.  The  invisible  police  of  the  insurrection 
were  on  the  watch  everywhere,  and  maintained  order,  that 
is  to  say,  night.  The  necessary  tactics  of  insurrection  are  to 
drown  small  numbers  in  a  vast  obscurity,  to  multiply  every 
combatant  by  the  possibilities  which  that  obscurity  contains. 
At  dusk,  every  window  where  a  candle  was  burning  received  a 
shot.  The  light  was  extinguished,  sometimes  the  inhabitant 


352 

was  killed.  Hence  nothing  was  stirring.  There  was  noth- 
ing but  fright,  mourning,  stupor  in  the  houses;  and  in  the 
streets,  a  sort  of  sacred  horror.  Not  even  the  long  rows  of 
windows  and  stores,  the  indentations  of  the  chimneys,  and  the 
roofs,  and  the  vague  reflections  which  are  cast  back  by  the 
wet  and  muddy  pavements,  were  visible.  An  eye  cast  upward 
at  that  mass  of  shadows  might,  perhaps,  have  caught  a  glimpse 
here  and  there,  at  intervals,  of  indistinct  gleams  which 
brought  out  broken  and  eccentric  lines,  and  profiles  of  sin- 
gular buildings,  something  like  the  lights  which  go  and  come 
in  ruins;  it  was  at  such  points  that  the  barricades  were  sit- 
uated. The  rest  was  a  lake  of  obscurity,  foggy,  heavy,  and 
funereal,  above  which,  in  motionless  and  melancholy  out- 
lines, rose  the  tower  of  Saint-Jacques,  the  church  of  Saint- 
Merry,  and  two  or  three  more  of  those  grand  edifices  of  which 
man  makes  giants  and  the  night  makes  phantoms. 

All  around  this  deserted  and  disquieting  labyrinth,  in  the 
quarters  where  the  Parisian  circulation  had  not  been  anni- 
hilated, and  where  a  few  street  lanterns  still  burned,  the  aerial 
observer  might  have  distinguished  the  metallic  gleam  of 
swords  and  bayonets,  the  dull  rumble  of  artillery,  and  the 
swarming  of  silent  battalions  whose  ranks  were  swelling  from 
minute  to  minute;  a  formidable  girdle  which  was  slowly 
drawing  in  and  around  the  insurrection. 

The  invested  quarter  was  no  longer  anything  more  than 
a  monstrous  cavern;  everything  there  appeared  to  be  asleep 
or  motionless,  and,  as  we  have  just  seen,  any  street  which 
one  might  come  to  offered  nothing  but  darkness. 

A  wild  darkness,  full  of  traps,  full  of  unseen  and  for- 
midable shocks,  into  which  it  was  alarming  to  penetrate,  and 
in  which  it  was  terrible  to  remain,  where  those  who  entered 
shivered  before  those  whom  they  awaited,  where  those  who 
waited  shuddered  before  those  who  were  coming.  Invisible 
combatants  were  intrenched  at  every  corner  of  the  street; 
snares  of  the  sepulchre  concealed  in  the  density  of  night.  All 
was  over.  No  more  light  was  to  be  hoped  for,  henceforth, 
except  the  lightning  of  guns,  no  further  encounter  except 


AIAIUU8   ENTERS   THE   SHADOW  353 

the  abrupt  and  rapid  apparition  of  death.  Where?  How? 
When?  No  one  knew,  but  it  was  certain  and  inevitable.  In 
this  place  which  had  been  marked  out  for  the  struggle,  the 
Government  and  the  insurrection,  the  National  Guard,  and 
popular  societies,  the  bourgeois  and  the  uprising,  groping 
their  way,  were  about  to  come  into  contact.  The  necessity 
was  the  same  for  both.  The  only  possible  issue  thenceforth 
was  to  emerge  thence  killed  or  conquerors.  A  situation  so 
extreme,  an  obscurity  so  powerful,  that  the  most  timid  felt 
themselves  seized  with  resolution,  and  the  most  daring  with 
terror. 

Moreover,  on  both  sides,  the  fury,  the  rage,  and  the  deter- 
mination were  equal.  For  the  one  party,  to  advance  meant 
death,  and  no  one  dreamed  of  retreating;  for  the  other,  to 
remain  meant  death,  and  no  one  dreamed  of  flight. 

It  was  indispensable  that  all  should  be  ended  on  the  fol- 
lowing day,  that  triumph  should  rest  either  here  or  there,  that 
the  insurrection  should  prove  itself  a  revolution  or  a  skirmish. 
The  Government  understood  this  as  well  as  the  parties;  the 
most  insignificant  bourgeois  felt  it.  Hence  a  thought  of  an- 
guish which  mingled  with  the  impenetrable  gloom  of  this 
quarter  where  all  was  at  the  point  of  being  decided ;  hence  a 
redoubled  anxiety  around  that  silence  whence  a  catastrophe 
was  on  the  point  of  emerging.  Here  only  one  sound  was 
audible,  a  sound  as  heart-rending  as  the  death  rattle,  as 
menacing  as  a  malediction,  the  tocsin  of  Saint-Merry.  Noth- 
ing could  be  more  blood-curdling  than  the  clamor  of  that 
wild  and  desperate  bell,  wailing  amid  the  shadows. 

As  it  often  happens,  nature  seemed  to  have  fallen  into 
accord  with  what  men  were  about  to  do.  Nothing  disturbed 
the  harmony  of  the  whole  effect.  The  stars  had  disappeared, 
heavy  clouds  filled  the  horizon  with  their  melancholy  folds. 
A  black  sky  rested  on  these  dead  streets,  as  though  an  im- 
mense winding-sheet  were  being  outspread  over  this  immense 
tomb. 

While  a  battle  that  was  still  wholly  political  was  in  prep- 
aration in  the  same  locality  which  had  already  witnessed  so 


354  8AIST-DEXIB 

many  revolutionary  events,  while  youth,  the  secret  associa- 
tions, the  schools,  in  the  name  of  principles,  and  the  middle 
classes,  in  the  name  of  interests,  were  approaching  prepara- 
tory to  dashing  themselves  together,  clasping  and  throwing 
each  other,  while  each  one  hastened  and  invited  the  last  and 
decisive  hour  of  the  crisis,  far  away  and  quite  outside  of  this 
fatal  quarter,  in  the  most  profound  depths  of  the  unfathom- 
able cavities  of  that  wretched  old  Paris  which  disappears 
under  the  splendor  of  happy  and  opulent  Paris,  the  sombre 
voice  of  the  people  could  be  heard  giving  utterance  to  a  dull 
roar. 

A  fearful  and  sacred  voice  which  is  composed  of  the  roar 
of  the  brute  and  of  the  word  of  God,  which  terrifies  the 
weak  arid  which  warns  the  wise,  which  comes  both  from 
below  like  the  voice  of  the  lion,  and  from  on  high  like  the 
voice  of  the  thunder. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  EXTREME  EDGE 

MARIUS  had  reached  the  Halles. 

There  everything  was  still  calmer,  more  obscure  and  more 
motionless  than  in  the  neighboring  streets.  One  would  have 
said  that  the  glacial  peace  of  the  sepulchre  had  sprung  forth 
from  the  earth  and  had  spread  over  the  heavens. 

Nevertheless,  a  red  glow  brought  out  against  this  black 
background  the  lofty  roofs  of  the  houses  which  barred  the 
Rue  de  la  Chanvrerie  on  the  Saint-Eustache  side.  It  was  the  re- 
flection of  the  torch  which  was  burning  in  the  Corinthe  barri- 
cade. Marius  directed  his  steps  towards  that  red  light.  It  had 
drawn  him  to  the  Marche-aux-Poirees,  and  he  caught  a 
glimpse  of  the  dark  mouth  of  the  Rue  des  Precheurs.  He 
entered  it.  The  insurgents'  sentinel,  who  was  guarding  the 
other  end,  did  not  see  him.  He  felt  that  he  was  very  close 
to  that  which  he  had  come  in  search  of,  and  he  walked  on  tip- 


MARIUS   ENTERS    THE   till  A  DOW  355 

toe.  In  this  manner  he  reached  the  elbow  of  that  short  sec- 
tion of  the  Rue  Mondetour  which  was,  as  the  reader  will  re- 
member, the  only  communication  which  Enjolras  had  pre- 
served with  the  outside  world.  At  the  corner  of  the  last 
house,  on  his  left,  he  thrust  his  head  forward,  and  looked 
into  the  fragment  of  the  Rue  Mondetour. 

A  little  beyond  the  angle  of  the  lane  and  the  Rue  de  la 
Chanvrerie  which  cast  a  broad  curtain  of  shadow,  in  which 
he  was  himself  engulfed,  he  perceived  some  light  on  the  pave- 
ment, a  bit  of  the  wine-shop,  and  beyond,  a  flickering  lamp 
within  a  sort  of  shapeless  wall,  and  men  crouching  down  with 
guns  on  their  knees.  All  this  was  ten  fathoms  distant  from 
him.  It  was  the  interior  of  the  barricade. 

The  houses  which  bordered  the  lane  on  the  right  concealed 
the  rest  of  the  wine-shop,  the  large  barricade,  and  the  flag 
from  him. 

Marius  had  but  a  step  more  to  take. 

Then  the  unhappy  young  man  seated  himself  on  a  post, 
folded  his  arms,  and  fell  to  thinking  about  his  father. 

He  thought  of  that  heroic  Colonel  Pontmercy.  who  had  been 
so  proud  a  soldier,  who  had  guarded  the  frontier  of  France 
under  the  Republic,  and  had  touched  the  frontier  of  Asia 
under  Napoleon,  who  had  beheld  Genoa,  Alexandria,  Milan, 
Turin,  Madrid,  Vienna,  Dresden,  Berlin,  Moscow,  who  had 
left  on  all  the  victorious  battle-fields  of  Europe  drops  of  that 
same  blood,  which  he,  Marius,  had  in  his  veins,  who  had  grown 
gray  before  his  time  in  discipline  and  command,  who  had 
lived  with  his  sword-belt  buckled,  his  epaulets  falling  on  his 
breast,  his  cockade  blackened  with  powder,  his  brow  furrowed 
with  his  helmet,  in  barracks,  in  camp,  in  the  bivouac,  in 
ambulances,  and  who,  at  the  expiration  of  twenty  years,  had 
returned  from  the  great  wars  with  a  scarred  chock,  a  smiling 
countenance,  tranquil,  admirable,  pure  as  a  child,  having 
done  everything  for  France  and  nothing  against  her. 

He  said  to  himself  that  his  day  had  also  come  now,  that 
his  hour  had  struck,  that  following  his  father,  he  too  was 
about  to  show  himself  brave,  intrepid,  bold,  to  run  to  meet 


356  SAINT-DENIS 

the  bullets,  to  offer  his  breast  to  bayonets,  to  shed  his  blood, 
to  seek  the  enemy,  to  seek  death,  that  he  was  about  to  wage 
war  in  his  turn  and  descend  to  the  field  of  battle,  and  that  the 
field  of  battle  upon  which  he  was  to  descend  was  the  street, 
and  that  the  war  in  which  he  was  about  to  engage  was  civil 
war! 

He  beheld  civil  war  laid  open  like  a  gulf  before  him,  and 
into  this  he  was  about  to  fall.  Then  he  shuddered. 

He  thought  of  his  father's  sword,  which  his  grandfather  had 
sold  to  a  second-hand  dealer,  and  which  he  had  so  mournfully 
regretted.  He  said  to  himself  that  that  chaste  and  valiant 
sword  had  done  well  to  escape  from  him,  and  to  depart  in 
wrath  into  the  gloom ;  that  if  it  had  thus  fled,  it  was  because 
it  was  intelligent  and  because  it  had  foreseen  the  future ;  that 
it  had  had  a  presentiment  of  this  rebellion,  the  war  of  the 
gutters,  the  war  of  the  pavements,  fusillades  through  cellar- 
windows,  blows  given  and  received  in  the  rear ;  it  was  because, 
coming  from  Marengo  and  Friedland,  it  did  not  wish  to  go 
to  the  Rue  de  la  Chanvrerie ;  it  was  because,  after  what  it 
had  done  with  the  father,  it  did  not  wish  to  do  this  for  the 
son!  He  told  himself  that  if  that  sword  were  there,  if  after 
taking  possession  of  it  at  his  father's  pillow,  he  had  dared 
to  take  it  and  carry  it  off  for  this  combat  of  darkness  between 
Frenchmen  in  the  streets,  it  would  assuredly  have  scorched 
his  hands  and  burst  out  aflame  before  his  eyes,  like  the  sword 
of  the  angel !  He  told  himself  that  it  was  fortunate  that 
it  was  not  there  and  that  it  had  disappeared,  that  that  was 
well,  that  that  was  just,  that  his  grandfather  had  been  the 
true  guardian  of  his  father's  glory,  and  that  it  was  far  better 
that  the  colonel's  sword  should  be  sold  at  auction,  sold  to  the 
old-clothes  man,  thrown  among  the  old  junk,  than  that  it 
should,  to-day,  wound  the  side  of  his  country. 

And  then  he  fell  to  weeping  bitterly. 

This  was  horrible.  But  what  was  he  to  do?  Live  without 
Cosette  he  could  not.  Since  she  was  gone,  he  must  needs 
die.  Had  he  not  given  her  his  word  of  honor  that  he  would 
die  ?  She  had  gone  knowing  that ;  this  meant  that  it  pleased 


MARWS   ENTERS   THE   SHADOW  357 

her  that  Marius  should  die.  And  then,  it  was  clear  that  she  no 
longer  loved  him,  since  she  had  departed  thus  without  warn- 
ing, without  a  word,  without  a  letter,  although  she  knew  his 
address!  What  was  the  good  of  living,  and  why  should  he 
live  now?  And  then,  what!  should  he  retreat  after  going  so 
far?  should  he  flee  from  danger  after  having  approached  it? 
should  he  slip  away  after  having  come  and  peeped  into  the 
harricade?  slip  away,  all  in  a  tremble,  saying:  "After  all, 
I  have  had  enough  of  it  as  it  is.  T  have  seen  it.  that  suffices, 
this  is  civil  war,  and  T  shall  take  my  leave !"  Should  he 
abandon  his  friends  who  were  expecting  him?  Who  were  in 
need  of  him  possibly!  who  were  a  mere  handful  against  an 
army!  Should  ho  be  untrue  at  once  to  his  love,  to  country, 
to  his  word?  Should  he  give  to  his  cowardice  the  pretext  of 
patriotism?  But  this  was  impossible,  and  if  the  phantom 
of  his  father  was  there  in  the  gloom,  and  beheld  him  retreat- 
ing, he  would  beat  him  on  the  loins  with  the  flat  of  his  sword, 
and  shout  to  him :  "March  on,  you  poltroon !" 

Thus  a  prey  to  the  conflicting  movements  of  his  thoughts, 
he  dropped  his  head. 

All  at  once  he  raised  it.  A  sort  of  splendid  rectification  had 
just  been  effected  in  his  mind.  There  is  a  widening  of  the 
sphere  of  thought  which  is  peculiar  to  the  vicinity  of  the 
grave ;  it  makes  one  see  clearly  to  be  near  death.  The  vision 
of  the  action  into  which  he  felt  that  he  was,  perhaps,  on  the 
point  of  entering,  appeared  to  him  no  more  as  lamentable, 
but  as  superb.  The  war  of  the  street  was  suddenly  trans- 
figured by  some  unfathomable  inward  working  of  his  soul, 
before  the  eye  of  his  thought.  All  the  tumultuous  interroga- 
tion points  of  revery  recurred  to  him  in  throngs,  but  without 
troubling  him.  He  left  none  of  them  unanswered. 

Let  us  see,  why  should  his  father  be  indignant  ?  Are  there 
not  cases  where  insurrection  rises  to  the  dignity  of  duty? 
What  was  there  that  was  degrading  for  the  son  of  Colonel 
Pontmercy  in  the  combat  which  was  about  to  begin?  It  is 
no  longer  Montmirail  nor  Champaubert :  it  is  something  quite 
different.  The  question  is  no  longer  one  of  sacred  territory, — 


358  8AI\T-DEM8 

but  of  a  holy  idea.  The  country  wails,  that  may  be, 
but  humanity  applauds.  But  is  it  true  that  the  country  does 
wail?  France  bleeds,  but  liberty  smiles;  and  in  the  presence 
of  liberty's  smile,  France  forgets  her  wound.  And  then  if  we 
look  at  things  from  a  still  more  lofty  point  of  view,  why  do 
we  speak  of  civil  war? 

Civil  war — what  does  that  mean?  Is  there  a  foreign  war? 
Is  not  all  war  between  men  war  between  brothers?  War  is 
qualified  only  by  its  object.  There  is  no  such  thing  as  foreign 
or  civil  war ;  there  is  only  just  and  unjust  war.  Until  that  day 
when  the  grand  human  agreement  is  concluded,  war,  that  at 
least  which  is  the  effort  of  the  future,  which  is  hastening  on 
against  the  past,  which  is  lagging  in  the  rear,  may  be  neces- 
sary. What  have  we  to  reproach  that  war  with?  War  does  not 
become  a  disgrace,  the  sword  does  not  become  a  disgrace, 
except  when  it  is  used  for  assassinating  the  right,  progress, 
reason,  civilization,  truth.  Then  war,  whether  foreign  or 
civil,  is  iniquitous ;  it  is  called  crime.  Outside  the  pale  of 
that  holy  thing,  justice,  by  what  right  does  one  form  of  man 
despise  another?  By  what  right  should  the  sword  of  Wash- 
ington disown  the  pike  of  Camille  Desmoulins?  Leonidas 
against  the  stranger.  Timoleon  against  the  tyrant,  which  is 
the  greater?  the  one  is  the  defender,  the  other  the  liberator. 
Shall  we  brand  every  appeal  to  arms  within  a  city's  limits 
without  taking  the  object  into  a  consideration  ?  Then  note  the 
infamy  of  Brutus.  Marcel,  Arnould  von  Blankenheim,  Coligny, 
Hedgerow  war?  War  of  the  streets?  Why  not?  That  was 
the  war  of  Ambiorix,  of  Artevelde.  of  Marnix,  of  Pelngius. 
But  Ambiorix  fought  against  Rome,  Artevelde  against  France. 
Marnix  against  Spain,  Pelagius  against  the  Moors ;  all  against 
the  foreigner.  Well,  the  monarchy  is  a  foreigner;  oppression 
is  a  stranger;  the  right  divine  is  a  stranger.  Despotism 
violates  the  moral  frontier,  an  invasion  violates  the  geographi- 
cal frontier.  Driving  out  the  tyrant  or  driving  out  the 
English,  in  both  cases,  regaining  possession  of  one's  own 
territory.  There  comes  an  hour  when  protestation  no  longer 
suffices;  after  philosophy,  action  is  required;  live  force  finishes 


MARIU8   ENTERS    THE   SHADOW  359 

what  the  idea  has  sketched  out;  Prometheus  chained  begins, 
Arostogeiton  ends;  the  encyclopedia  enlightens  souls,  the  10th 
of  August  electrifies  them.  After  ^Eschylus,  Thrasybulus ; 
after  Diderot,  Danton.  Multitudes  have  a  tendency  to  accept 
the  master.  Their  mass  bears  witness  to  apathy.  A  crowd  is 
easily  led  as  a  whole  to  obedience.  Men  must  be  stirred  up, 
pushed  on,  treated  roughly  by  the  very  benefit  of  their  deliver- 
ance, their  eyes  must  be  wounded  by  the  true,  light  must  be 
hurled  at  them  in  terrible  handfuls.  They  must  be  a  little 
thunderstruck  themselves  at  their  own  well-being;  this 
dazzling  awakens  them.  Hence  the  necessity  of  tocsins  and 
wars.  Great  combatants  must  rise,  must  enlighten  nations 
with  audacity,  and  shake  up  that  sad  humanity  which  is 
covered  with  gloom  by  the  right  divine,  Cffisarian  glory,  force, 
fanaticism,  irresponsible  power,  and  absolute  majesty ;  a 
rabble  stupidly  occupied  in  the  contemplation,  in  their  twi- 
light splendor,  of  these  sombre  triumphs  of  the  night.  Down 
with  the  tyrant!  Of  whom  are  you  speaking?  Do  you  call 
Louis  Philippe  the  tyrant?  No;  no  more  than  Louis  XVI. 
Both  of  them  are  what  history  is  in  the  habit  of  calling  good 
kings;  but  principles  are  not  to  be  parcelled  out,  the  logic  of 
the  true  is  rectilinear,  the  peculiarity  of  truth  is  that  it  lacks 
complaisance ;  no  concessions,  then ;  all  encroachments  on  man 
should  be  repressed.  There  is  a  divine  right  in  Louis  XVI., 
there  is  because  a  Bourlon  in  Louis  Philippe;  both  represent 
in  a  certain  measure  the  confiscation  of  right,  and.  in  order  to 
clear  away  universal  insurrection,  they  must  be  combated  ;  it 
must  be  done,  France  being  always  the  one  to  begin.  When 
the  master  falls  in  France,  he  falls  everywhere.  In  short,  what 
cause  is  more  just,  and  consequently,  what  war  is  greater,  than 
that  which  re-establishes  social  truth,  restores  her  throne  to 
liberty,  restores  the  people  to  the  people,  restores  sovereignty 
to  man,  replaces  the  purple  on  the  head  of  France,  restores 
equity  and  reason  in  their  plenitude,  suppresses  every  germ  of 
antagonism  by  restoring  each  one  to  himself,  annihilates  the 
obstacle  which  royalty  presents  to  the  whole  immense  universal 
concord,  and  places  the  human  race  once  more  on  a  level  with 


360  SAINT-DENIS 

the  right  ?  These  wars  build  up  peace.  An  enormous  fortress 
of  prejudices,  privileges,  superstitions,  lies,  exactions,  abuses, 
violences,  iniquities,  and  darkness  still  stands  erect  in  this 
world,  with  its  towers  of  hatred.  It  must  be  cast  down.  This 
monstrous  mass  must  be  made  to  crumble.  To  conquer  at 
Austerlitz  is  grand ;  to  take  the  Bastille  is  immense. 

There  is  no  one  who  has  not  noticed  it  in  his  own  case — the 
soul, — and  therein  lies  the  marvel  of  its  unity  complicated 
with  ubiquity,  has  a  strange  aptitude  for  reasoning  almost 
coldly  in  the  most  violent  extremities,  and  it  often  happens 
that  heartbroken  passion  and  profound  despair  in  the  very 
agony  of  their  blackest  monologues,  treat  subjects  and  discuss 
theses.  Logic  is  mingled  with  convulsion,  and  the  thread  of 
the  syllogism  floats,  without  breaking,  in  the  mournful  storm 
of  thought.  This  was  the  situation  of  Marius'  mind. 

As  he  meditated  thus,  dejected  but  resolute,  hesitating  in 
every  direction,  and.  in  short,  shuddering  at  what  he  was 
about  to  do,  his  glance  strayed  to  the  interior  of  the  barricade. 
The  insurgents  were  here  conversing  in  a  low  voice,  without 
moving,  and  there  was  perceptible  that  quasi-silence  which 
marks  the  last  stage  of  expectation.  Overhead,  at  the  small 
window  in  the  third  story,  Marius  descried  a  sort  of  spectator 
who  appeared  to  him  to  be  singularly  attentive.  This  was  the 
porter  who  had  been  killed  by  Le  Cabuc.  Below,  by  the  lights 
of  the  torch,  which  was  thrust  between  the  paving-stones,  this 
head  could  be  vaguely  distinguished.  Nothing  could  be 
stranger,  in  that  sombre  and  uncertain  gleam,  than  that  livid, 
motionless,  astonished  face,  with  its  bristling  hair,  its  eyes 
fixed  and  staring,  and  its  yawning  mouth,  bent  over  the  street 
in  an  attitude  of  curiosity.  One  would  have  said  that  the 
man  who  was  dead  was  surveying  those  who  were  about  to 
die.  A  long  trail  of  blood  which  had  flowed  from  that  head, 
descended  in  reddish  threads  from  the  window  to  the  height 
of  the  first  floor,  where  it  stopped. 


BOOK  FOURTEENTH.— THE  GRANDEURS  OF 
DESPAIR 

CHAPTER   I 

THE  FLAG  :  ACT  FIRST 

As  yet,  nothing  had  come.  Ten  o'clock  had  sounded  from 
Saint-Merry.  Enjolras  and  Combeferre  had  gone  and  seated 
themselves,  carbines  in  hand,  near  the  outlet  of  the  grand 
barricade.  They  no  longer  addressed  each  other,  they  listened, 
seeking  to  catch  even  the  faintest  and  most  distant  sound  of 
marching. 

Suddenly,  in  the  midst  of  the  dismal  calm,  a  clear,  gay, 
young  voice,  which  seemed  to  come  from  the  Rue  Saint-Denis, 
rose  and  began  to  sing  distinctly,  to  the  old  popular  air  of 
"By  the  Light  of  the  Moon,"  this  bit  of  poetry,  terminated  by 
a  cry  like  the  crow  of  a  cock : — 

Mon  nez  est  en  larmes, 
Mon  ami  Bugeaud, 
PrCte  moi  tes  gendarmes 
Pour  leur  dire  un  mot. 

En  capote  hleue, 
La  poulo  an  shako, 
Voici  la  banlieue! 
Co-cocorieo!1 

They  pressed  each  other's  hands. 
"That  is  Gavrochc,"  said  Enjolras. 
"He  is  warning  us,"  said  Combeferre. 

*My  nose  is  in  tears,  my  friend  Bugead,  lend  me  thy  gendarmes 
that  I  may  say  a  word  to  them.  With  a  plue  capote  and  a  chicken 
in  his  shako,  here's  the  banlieue,  co-cocorico. 


362  SAIXT-DEXIS 

A  hasty  rush  troubled  the  deserted  street;  they  beheld  a 
being  more  agile  than  a  clown  climb  over  the  omnibus,  and 
Gavroche  bounded  into  the  barricade,  all  breathless,  saying: — 

"My  gun  !    Here  they  are  !" 

An  electric  quiver  shot  through  the  whole  barricade,  and  the 
sound  of  hands  seeking  their  guns  became  audible. 

"Would  you  like  my  carbine?''  said  Enjolras  to  the  lad. 

"I  want  a  big  gun,"  replied  Gavroche. 

And  he  seized  Javert's  gun. 

Two  sentinels  had  fallen  back,  and  had  come  in  almost 
at  the  same  moment  as  Gavroche.  They  were  the  sentinels 
from  the  end  of  the  street,  and  the  vidette  of  the  Rue  de  la 
Petite-Truanderie.  The  vidette  of  the  Lane  des  Precheurs 
had  remained  at  his  post,  which  indicated  that  nothing 
was  approaching  from  the  direction  of  the  bridges  and 
Halles. 

The  Rue  de  la  Chanvrerie,  of  which  a  few  paving-stones 
alone  were  dimly  visible  in  the  reflection  of  the  light  projected 
on  the  flag,  offered  to  the  insurgents  the  aspect  of  a  vast  black 
door  vaguely  opened  into  a  smoke. 

Each  man  had  taken  up  his  position  for  the  conflict. 

Forty-three  insurgents,  among  wliom  were  Enjolras,  Combe- 
ferre,  Courfeyrac,  Bossuet.  Joly,  Bahorel,  and  Gavroche.  were 
kneeling  inside  the  large  barricade,  with  their  heads  on  a  level 
with  the  crest  of  the  barrier,  the  barrels  of  their  guns  and 
carbines  aimed  on  the  stones  as  though  at  loop-holes,  attentive, 
mute,  ready  to  fire.  Six,  commanded  by  Fcuilly,  had  installed 
themselves,  with  their  guns  levelled  at  their  shoulders,  at  the 
windows  of  the  two  stories  of  Corinthe. 

Several  minutes  passed  thus,  then  a  sound  of  footsteps, 
measured,  heavy,  and  numerous,  became  distinctly  audible  in 
the  direction  of  Saint-Leu.  This  sound,  faint  at  first,  then 
precise,  then  heavy  and  sonorous,  approached  slowly,  without 
halt,  without  intermission,  with  a  tranquil  and  terrible  conti- 
nuity. Nothing  was  to  he  heard  but  this.  Tt  was  that  com- 
bined silence  and  sound,  of  the  statue  of  the  commander,  but 
this  stony  step  had  something  indescribably  enormous  and 


THE    GRANDEURS   OF  DESPAIR  3^3 

multiple  about  it  which  awakened  the  idea  of  a  throng,  and, 
at  the  same  time,  the  idea  of  a  spectre.  One  thought  one 
heard  the  terrible  statue  Legion  marching  onward.  This  tread 
drew  near;  it  drew  still  nearer,  and  stopped.  It  seemed  as 
though  the  breathing  of  many  men  could  be  heard  at  the 
end  of  the  street.  Nothing  was  to  be  seen,  however,  but  at 
the  bottom  of  that  dense  obscurity  there  could  be  distin- 
guished a  multitude  of  metallic  threads,  as  fine  as  needles  and 
almost  imperceptible,  which  moved  about  like  those  inde- 
scribable phosphoric  networks  which  one  sees  beneath  one's 
closed  eyelids,  in  the  first  mists  of  slumber  at  the  moment 
when  one  is  dropping  off  to  sleep.  These  were  bayonets  and 
gun-barrels  confusedly  illuminated  by  the  distant  reflection 
of  the  torch. 

A  pause  ensued,  as  though  both  sides  were  waiting.  All  at 
once,  from  the  depths  of  this  darkness,  a  voice,  which  was  all 
the  more  sinister,  since  no  one  was  visible,  and  which  ap- 
peared to  be  the  gloom  itself  speaking,  shouted : — 

"Who  goes  there  ?" 

At  the  same  time,  the  click  of  guns,  as  they  were  lowered 
into  position,  was  heard. 

Enjolras  replied  in  a  haughty  and  vibrating  tone : — 

"The  French  Revolution !" 

"Fire  !"  shouted  the  voice. 

A  flash  empurpled  all  the  fagades  in  the  street  as  though 
the  door  of  a  furnace  had  been  flung  open,  and  hastily  closed 
again. 

A  fearful  detonation  burst  forth  on  the  barricade.  The 
red  flag  fell.  The  discharge  had  been  so  violent  and  so  dense 
that  it  had  cut  the  staff,  that  is  to  say,  the  very  tip  of  the  om- 
nibus pole. 

Bullets  which  had  rebounded  from  the  cornices  of  the 
houses  penetrated  the  barricade  and  wounded  several  men. 

The  impression  produced  by  this  first  discharge  was  freez- 
ing. The  attack  had  been  rough,  and  of  a  nature  to  inspire 
reflection  in  the  boldest.  It  was  evident  that  they  had  to  deal 
with  an  entire  regiment  at  the  very  least. 


364  8A1XT-DENI8 

"Comrades !"  shouted  Courfeyrac,  "let  us  not  waste  our 
powder.  Let  us  wait  until  they  are  in  the  street  before  re- 
plying." 

"And,  above  all/'  said  Enjolras,  "let  us  raise  the  flag 
again." 

He  picked  up  the  flag,  which  had  fallen  precisely  at  his 
feet. 

Outside,  the  clatter  of  the  ramrods  in  the  guns  could  be 
heard;  the  troops  were  re-loading  their  arms. 

Enjolras  went  on : — 

"Who  is  there  here  with  a  bold  heart  ?  Who  will  plant  the 
flag  on  the  barricade  again  ?" 

Not  a  man  responded.  To  mount  on  the  barricade  at  the 
very  moment  when,  without  any  doubt,  it  was  again  the 
object  of  their  aim,  was  simply  death.  The  bravest  hesitated 
to  pronounce  his  own  condemnation.  Enjolras  himself  felt 
a  thrill.  He  repeated : — 

"Does  no  one  volunteer  ?" 


CHAPTER   II 

THE  FLAG:  ACT  SECOND 

SINCE  they  had  arrived  at  Corinthe,  and  had  begun  the  con- 
struction of  the  barricade,  no  attention  had  been  paid  to 
Father  Mabeuf.  M.  Mabeuf  had  not  quitted  the  mob,  how- 
ever; he  had  entered  the  ground-floor  of  the  wine-shop  and 
had  seated  himself  behind  the  counter.  There  he  had,  so  to 
speak,  retreated  into  himself.  He  no  longer  seemed  to  look 
or  to  think.  Courfeyrac  and  others  had  accosted  him  two  or 
three  times,  warning  him  of  his  peril,  beseeching  him  to 
withdraw,  but  he  did  not  hear  them.  When  they  were  not 
speaking  to  him,  his  mouth  moved  as  though  he  were  replying 
to  some  one,  and  as  soon  as  he  was  addressed,  his  lips  became 
motionless  and  his  eyes  no  longer  had  the  appearance  of  being 
alive. 


THE    GRANDEURS   OF   DERPAIR  3(55 

Several  hours  before  the  barricade  was  attacked,  he  had 
assumed  an  attitude  which  he  did  not  afterwards  abandon, 
with  both  fists  planted  on  his  knees  and  his  head  thrust  for- 
ward as  though  he  were  gazing  over  a  precipice.  Nothing  had 
been  able  to  move  him  from  this  attitude;  it  did  not  seem  as 
though  his  rnind  were  in  the  barricade.  When  each  had  gone 
to  take  up  his  position  for  the  combat,  there  remained  in  the 
tap-room  where  Javert  was  bound  to  the  post,  only  a  single 
insurgent  with  a  naked  sword,  watching  over  Javert,  and  him- 
self, Mabeuf.  At  the  moment  of  the  attack,  at  the  detonation, 
the  physical  shock  had  reached  him  and  had,  as  it  were,  awak- 
ened him ;  he  started  up  abruptly,  crossed  the  room,  and  at  the 
instant  when  Enjolras  repeated  his  appeal :  "Does  no  one  vol- 
unteer?" the  old  man  was  seen  to  make  his  appearance 
on  the  threshold  of  the  wine-shop.  His  presence  produced 
a  sort  of  commotion  in  the  different  groups.  A  shout  went 
up:— 

"It  is  the  voter !  It  is  the  member  of  the  Convention !  It 
is  the  representative  of  the  people !" 

It  is  probable  that  he  did  not  hear  them. 

He  strode  straight  up  to  Enjolras,  the  insurgents  withdraw- 
ing before  him  with  a  religious  fear;  he  tore  the  flag  from  En- 
jolras, who  recoiled  in  amazement,  and  then,  since  no  one 
dared  to  stop  or  to  assist  him,  this  old  man  of  eighty,  with 
shaking  head  but  firm  foot,  began  slowly  to  ascend  the  stair- 
case of  paving-stones  arranged  in  the  barricade.  This  was  so 
melancholy  and  so  grand  that  all  around  him  cried :  "Off  with 
your  hats!"  At  every  step  that  he  mounted,  it  was  a  fright- 
ful spectacle;  his  white  locks,  his  decrepit  face,  his  lofty,  bald, 
and  wrinkled  brow,  his  amazed  and  open  mouth,  his  aged  arm 
upholding  the  red  banner,  rose  through  the  gloom  and  were 
enlarged  in  the  bloody  light  of  the  torch,  and  the  bystanders 
thought  that  they  beheld  the  spectre  of  '93  emerging  from  the 
earth,  with  the  flag  of  terror  in  his  hand. 

When  he  had  reached  the  last  step,  when  this  trembling  and 
terrible  phantom,  erect  on  that  pile  of  rubbish  in  the  presence 
of  twelve  hundred  invisible  guns,  drew  himself  up  in  the  face 


366  SAINT-DENIS 

of  death  and  as  though  he  were  more  powerful  than  it,  the 
whole  barricade  assumed  amid  the  darkness,  a  supernatural 
and  colossal  form. 

There  ensued  one  of  those  silences  which  occur  only  in  the 
presence  of  prodigies.  In  the  midst  of  this  silence,  the  old 
man  waved  the  red  flag  and  shouted : — 

"Long  live  the  Revolution !  Long  live  the  Republic !  Fra- 
ternity !  Equality  !  and  Death  !" 

Those  in  the  barricade  heard  a  low  and  rapid  whisper,  like 
the  murmur  of  a  priest  who  is  despatching  a  prayer  in  haste. 
It  was  probably  the  commissary  of  police  who  was  making 
the  legal  summons  at  the  other  end  of  the  street. 

Then  the  same  piercing  voice  which  had  shouted:  "Who 
goes  there  ?''  shouted : — 

"Retire !" 

M.  Mabeuf,  pale,  haggard,  his  eyes  lighted  up  with  the 
mournful  flame  of  aberration,  raised  the  flag  above  his  head 
and  repeated : — 

"Long  live  the  Republic !" 

"Fire  !"  said  the  voice. 

A  second  discharge,  similar  to  the  first,  rained  down  upon 
the  barricade. 

The  old  man  fell  on  his  knees,  then  rose  again,  dropped 
the  flag  and  fell  backwards  on  the  pavement,  like  a  log,  at  full 
length,  with  outstretched  arms. 

Rivulets  of  blood  flowed  beneath  him.  His  aged  head,  pale 
and  sad,  seemed  to  be  gazing  at  the  sky. 

One  of  those  emotions  which  are  superior  to  man,  which 
make  him  forget  even  to  defend  himself,  seized  upon  the  in- 
surgents, and  they  approached  the  body  with  respectful  awe. 

"What  men  these  regicides  were!"  said  Enjolras. 

Courfeyrac  bent  down  to  Enjolras'  ear : — 

"This  is  for  yourself  alone,  I  do  not  wish  to  dampen  the 
enthusiasm.  But  this  man  was  anything  rather  than  a  regi- 
cide. I  knew  him.  His  name  was  Father  Mabeuf.  I  do  not 
know  what  was  the  matter  with  him  to-day.  But  he  was  a 
brave  blockhead.  Just  look  at  his  head." 


THE    GRANDEURS   OF   DESPAIR  3(57 

"The  head  of  a  blockhead  and  the  heart  of  a  Brutus,"  re- 
plied Enjolras. 

Then  he  raised  his  voice: — 

"Citizens !  This  is  the  example  which  the  old  give  to  the 
young.  We  hesitated,  he  came !  We  were  drawing  back,  he 
advanced!  This  is  what  those  who  are  trembling  with  ago 
teach  to  those  who  tremble  with  fear!  This  aged  man  is 
august  in  the  eyes  of  his  country.  He  has  had  a  long  life  and 
a  magnificent  death !  Now,  let  us  place  the  body  under  cover, 
that  each  one  of  us  may  defend  this  old  man  dead  as  he 
would  his  father  living,  and  may  his  presence  in  our  midst 
render  the  barricade  impregnable !" 

A  murmur  of  gloomy  and  energetic  assent  followed  these 
words. 

Enjolras  bent  down,  raised  the  old  man's  head,  and  fierce 
as  he  was,  he  kissed  him  on  the  brow,  then,  throwing  wide 
his  arms,  and  handling  this  dead  man  with  tender  precaution, 
as  though  he  feared  to  hurt  it,  he  removed  his  coat,  showed 
the  bloody  holes  in  it  to  all,  and  said : — 

"This  is  our  flag  now." 


CHAPTER  III 

GAVROCHE   WOULD   HAVE   DONE   BETTER   TO   ACCEPT   ENJOLRAS' 

CARBINE 

THEY  threw  a  long  black  shawl  of  Widow  Hucheloup's  over 
Father  Mabeuf.  Six  men  made  a  litter  of  their  guns;  on 
this  they  laid  the  body,  and  bore  it,  with  bared  heads,  with 
solemn  slowness,  to  the  large  table  in  the  tap-room. 

These  men,  wholly  absorbed  in  the  grave  and  sacred  task 
in  which  they  were  engaged,  thought  no  more  of  the  perilous 
situation  in  which  they  stood. 

When  the  corpse  passed  near  Javert,  who  was  still  impas- 
sive, Enjolras  said  to  the  spy: — 

"It  will  be  your  turn  presently !" 


368  SAINT-DENIS 

During  all  this  time,  Little  Gavroche,  who  alone  had  not 
quitted  his  post,  but  had  remained  on  guard,  thought  he 
espied  some  men  stealthily  approaching  the  barricade.  All  at 
once  he  shouted: — 

"Look  out !" 

Courfeyrac,  Enjolras,  Jean  Prouvaire,  Combeferre,  Joly, 
Bahorel,  Bossuet,  and  all  the  rest  ran  tumultuously  from  the 
wine-shop.  It  was  almost  too  late.  They  saw  a  glistening 
density  of  bayonets  undulating  above  the  barricade.  Munici- 
pal guards  of  lofty  stature  were  making  their  way  in,  some 
striding  over  the  omnibus,  others  through  the  cut,  thrusting 
before  them  the  urchin,  who  retreated,  but  did  not  flee. 

The  moment  was  critical.  It  was  that  first,  redoubtable  mo- 
ment of  inundation,  when  the  stream  rises  to  the  level  of  the 
levee  and  when  the  water  begins  to  filter  through  the  fissures 
of  dike.  A  second  more  and  the  barricade  would  have  been 
taken. 

Bahorel  dashed  upon  the  first  municipal  guard  who  was 
entering,  and  killed  him  on  the  spot  with  a  blow  from  his  gun ; 
the  second  killed  Bahorel  with  a  blow  from  his  bayonet.  An- 
other had  already  overthrown  Courfeyrac,  who  was  shouting: 
"Follow  me !"  The  largest  of  all,  a  sort  of  colossus,  marched 
on  Gavroche  with  his  bayonet  fixed.  The  urchin  took  in  his 
arms  Javert's  immense  gun,  levelled  it  resolutely  at  the  giant, 
and  fired.  No  discharge  followed.  Javert's  gun  was  not 
loaded.  The  municipal  guard  burst  into  a  laugh  and  raised 
his  bayonet  at  the  child. 

Before  the  bayonet  had  touched  Gavroche,  the  gun  slipped 
from  the  soldier's  grasp,  a  bullet  had  struck  the  municipal 
guardsman  in  the  centre  of  the  forehead,  and  he  fell  over  on 
his  back.  A  second  bullet  struck  the  other  guard,  who  had 
assaulted  Courfeyrac  in  the  breast,  and  laid  him  low  on  the 
pavement. 

This  was  the  work  of  Marius,  who  had  just  entered  the 
barricade. 


THE    GRANDEURS   OF  DESPAIR 

CHAPTER    IV 

THE  BARREL  OF  POWDER 

MARIUS,  still  concealed  in  the  turn  of  the  Rue  Mondetour, 
had  witnessed,  shuddering  and  irresolute,  the  first  phase  of 
the  combat.  But  he  had  not  long  been  able  to  resist  that 
mysterious  and  sovereign  vertigo  which  may  be  designated  as 
the  call  of  the  abyss.  In  the  presence  of  the  imminence  of  the 
peril,  in  the  presence  of  the  death  of  M.  Mabeuf,  that  melan- 
choly enigma,  in  the  presence  of  Bahorel  killed,  and  Courfey- 
rac  shouting:  "Follow  me!"  of  that  child  threatened,  of  his 
friends  to  succor  or  to  avenge,  all  hesitation  had  vanished, 
and  he  had  flung  himself  into  the  conflict,  his  two  pistols  in 
hand.  With  his  first  shot  he  had  saved  Gavroche,  and  with 
the  second  delivered  Courfeyrac. 

Amid  the  sound  of  the  shots,  amid  the  cries  of  the  assaulted 
guards,  the  assailants  had  climbed  the  entrenchment,  on  whose 
summit  Municipal  Guards,  soldiers  of  the  line  and  National 
Guards  from  the  suburbs  could  now  be  seen,  gun  in  hand, 
rearing  themselves  to  more  than  half  the  height  of  their 
bodies. 

They  already  covered  more  than  two-thirds  of  the  barrier, 
but  they  did  not  leap  into  the  enclosure,  as  though  wavering 
in  the  fear  of  some  trap.  They  gazed  into  the  dark  barricade 
as  one  would  gaze  into  a  lion's  den.  The  light  of  the  torch 
illuminated  only  their  bayonets,  their  bear-skin  caps,  and  the 
upper  part  of  their  uneasy  and  angry  faces. 

Marius  had  no  longer  any  weapons;  he  had  flung  away 
his  discharged  pistols  after  firing  them ;  but  lie  had  caught 
sight  of  the  barrel  of  powder  in  the  tap-room,  near  the 
door. 

As  he  turned  half  round,  gazing  in  that  direction,  a  soldier 
took  aim  at  him.  At  the  moment  when  the  soldu-r  was  sight- 
ing Marius,  a  hand  was  laid  on  the  muzzle  of  the  gun  and 
obstructed  it.  This  was  done  by  some  one  who  bad  darted 


370  SAINT-DENIS 

forward, — the  young  workman  in  velvet  trousers.  The  shot 
sped,  traversed  the  hand  and  possibly,  also,  the  workman, 
since  he  fell,  but  the  ball  did  not  strike  Marius.  All  this, 
which  was  rather  to  be  apprehended  than  seen  through  the 
smoke,  Marius,  who  was  entering  the  tap-room,  hardly  no- 
ticed. Still,  he  had,  in  a  confused  way,  perceived  that  gun- 
barrel  aimed  at  him,  and  the  hand  which  had  blocked  it,  and 
he  had  heard  the  discharge.  But  in  moments  like  this,  the 
things  which  one  sees  vacillate  and  are  precipitated,  and  one 
pauses  for  nothing.  One  feels  obscurely  impelled  towards 
more  darkness  still,  and  all  is  cloud. 

The  insurgents,  surprised  but  not  terrified,  had  rallied. 
Enjolras  had  shouted :  "Wait !  Don't  fire  at  random  !"  In  the 
first  confusion,  they  might,  in  fact,  wound  each  other.  The 
majority  of  them  had  ascended  to  the  window  on  the  first 
story  and  to  the  attic  windows,  whence  they  commanded  the 
assailants. 

The  most  determined,  with  Enjolras,  Courfeyrac,  Jean 
Prouvaire,  and  Combeferre,  had  proudly  placed  themselves 
with  their  backs  against  the  houses  at  the  rear,  unsheltered 
and  facing  the  ranks  of  soldiers  and  guards  who  crowned  the 
barricade. 

All  this  was  accomplished  without  haste,  with  that 
strange  and  threatening  gravity  which  precedes  engage- 
ments. They  took  aim,  point  blank,  on  both  sides:  they 
were  so  close  that  they  could  talk  together  without  raising 
their  voices. 

When  they  had  reached  this  point  where  the  spark  is  on  the 
brink  of  darting  forth,  an  officer  in  a  gorget  extended  his 
sword  and  said: — 

"Lay  down  your  arms !" 

"Fire!"  replied  Enjolras. 

The  two  discharges  took  place  at  the  same  moment,  and  all 
disappeared  in  smoke. 

An  acrid  and  stifling  smoke  in  which  dying  and  wounded 
lay  with  weak,  dull  groans.  When  the  smoke  cleared  away,  the 
combatants  on  both  sides  could  be  seen  to  be  thinned  out,  but 


THE    GRANDEURS   OF  DESPAIR  371 

still  in  the  same  positions,  reloading  in  silence.  All  at  once, 
a  thundering  voice  was  heard,  shouting: — 

"Be  off  with  you,  or  I'll  blow  up  the  barricade !" 

All  turned  in  the  direction  whence  the  voice  proceeded. 

Marius  had  entered  the  tap-room,  and  had  seized  the  barrel 
of  powder,  then  he  had  taken  advantage  of  the  smoke,  and  the 
sort  of  obscure  mist  which  filled  the  entrenched  enclosure,  to 
glide  along  the  barricade  as  far  as  that  cage  of  paving-stones 
where  the  torch  was  fixed.  To  tear  it  from  the  torch,  to 
replace  it  by  the  barrel  of  powder,  to  thrust  the  pile  of  stones 
under  the  barrel,  which  was  instantly  staved  in,  with  a  sort 
of  horrible  obedience, — all  this  had  cost  Marius  but  the  time 
necessary  to  stoop  and  rise  again ;  and  now  all.  National 
Guards,  Municipal  Guards,  officers,  soldiers,  huddled  at  the 
other  extremity  of  the  barricade,  gazed  stupidly  at  him,  as  he 
stood  with  his  foot  on  the  stones,  his  torch  in  his  hand,  hia 
haughty  face  illuminated  by  a  fatal  resolution,  drooping  the 
flame  of  the  torch  towards  that  redoubtable  pile  where  they 
could  make  out  the  broken  barrel  of  powder,  and  giving  vent 
to  that  startling  cry : — 

"Be  off  with  you,  or  I'll  blow  up  the  barricade !" 

Marius  on  that  barricade  after  the  octogenarian  was  the 
vision  of  the  young  revolution  after  the  apparition  of  the  old. 

"Blow  up  the  barricade!"  said  a  sergeant,  "and  yourself 
with  it !" 

Marius  retorted:  "And  myself  also." 

And  he  dropped  the  torch  towards  the  barrel  of  powder. 

But  there  was  no  longer  any  one  on  the  barrier.  The  assail- 
ants, abandoning  their  dead  and  wounded,  flowed  back  pell- 
mell  and  in  disorder  towards  the  extremity  of  the  street,  and 
there  were  again  lost  in  the  night.  It  was  a  headlong 
flight. 

The  barricade  was  free 


372  SAINT-DENIS 

CHAPTER   V 

END  OF  THE  VERSES  OF  JEAN  PROUVAIRB 

ALL  flocked  around  Marius.  Courfeyrac  flung  himself  on 
his  neck. 

"Here  you  are!" 

"What  luck !"  said  Combeferre. 

"You  came  in  opportunely !"  ejaculated  Bossuet. 

"If  it  had  not  been  for  you,  I  should  have  been  dead!" 
began  Courfeyrac  again. 

"If  it  had  not  been  for  you,  I  should  have  been  gobbled 
up !"  added  Gavroche. 

Marius  asked: — 

"Where  is  the  chief?" 

"You  are  he !"  said  Enjolras. 

Marius  had  had  a  furnace  in  his  brain  all  day  long ;  now  it 
was  a  whirlwind.  This  whirlwind  which  was  within  him,  pro- 
duced on  him  the  effect  of  being  outside  of  him  and  of  bearing 
him  away.  It  seemed  to  him  that  he  was  already  at  an  im- 
mense distance  from  life.  His  two  luminous  months  of  joy 
and  love,  ending  abruptly  at  that  frightful  precipice,  Cosette 
lost  to  him,  that  barricade,  M.  Mabeuf  getting  himself  killed 
for  the  Republic,  himself  the  leader  of  the  insurgents, — all 
these  things  appeared  to  him  like  a  tremendous  nightmare. 
He  was  obliged  to  make  a  mental  effort  to  recall  the  fact  that 
all  that  surrounded  him  was  real.  Marius  had  already  seen  too 
much  of  life  not  to  know  that  nothing  is  more  imminent  than 
the  impossible,  and  that  what  it  is  always  necessary  to  foresee 
is  the  unforeseen.  He  had  looked  on  at  his  own  drama  as  a 
piece  which  one  does  not  understand. 

In  the  mists  which  enveloped  his  thoughts,  ho  did  not 
recognize  Javert,  who,  bound  to  his  post,  had  not  so  much  as 
moved  his  head  during  the  whole  of  the  attack  on  the  barri- 
cade, and  who  had  gazed  on  the  revolt  seething  around  him 
with  the  resignation  of  a  martyr  and  the  majesty  of  a  judge. 
Marius  had  not  even  seen  him. 


THE    GRANDEURS   OF  DESPAIR  373 

Tn  the  meanwhile,  the  assailants  did  not  stir,  they  could  be 
heard  inarching  and  swarming  through  at  the  end  of  the 
street,  but  they  did  not  venture  into  it,  either  because  they 
were  awaiting  orders  or  because  they  were  awaiting  reinforce- 
ments before  hurling  themselves  afresh  on  this  impregnable 
redoubt.  The  insurgents  had  posted  sentinels,  and  some  of 
them,  who  were  medical  students,  set  about  caring  for  the 
wounded. 

They  had  thrown  the  tables  out  of  the  wine-shop,  with  the 
exception  of  the  two  tables  reserved  for  lint  and  cartridges, 
and  of  the  one  on  which  lay  Father  Mabeuf ;  they  had  added 
them  to  the  barricade,  and  had  replaced  them  in  the  tap-room 
with  mattresses  from  the  bed  of  the  widow  Hucheloup  and  her 
servants.  On  these  mattresses  they  had  laid  the  wounded.  As 
for  the  three  poor  creatures  who  inhabited  Corinthe,  no  one 
knew  what  had  become  of  them.  They  were  finally  found, 
however,  hidden  in  the  cellar. 

A  poignant  emotion  clouded  the  joy  of  the  disencumbered 
barricade. 

The  roll  was  called.  One  of  the  insurgents  was  missing. 
And  who  was  it?  One  of  the  dearest.  One  of  the  most 
valiant.  Jean  Prouvaire.  He  was  sought  among  the 
wounded,  he  was  not  there.  He  was  sought  among  the  dead, 
he  was  not  there.  He  was  evidently  a  prisoner.  Combeferre 
said  to  Enjolras : — 

"They  have  our  friend;  we  have  their  agent.  Are  you  set 
on  the  death  of  that  spy?" 

"Yes,"  replied  Enjolras;  "but  less  so  than  on  the  life  of 
Jean  Prouvaire." 

This  took  place  in  the  tap-room  near  Javert's  post. 

"Well,"  resumed  Combeferre,  "I  am  going  to  fasten  my 
handkerchief  to  my  cane,  and  go  as  a  flag  of  truce,  to  offer  to 
exchange  our  man  for  theirs." 

"Listen,"  said  Enjolras,  laying  his  hand  on  Combeferre's 
arm. 

At  the  end  of  the  street  there  was  a  significant  clash  of 
arms. 


374  8  AJ  NT-DEN  18 

They  heard  a  manly  voice  shout: — 
"Vive   la    France!     Long   live   France!     Long   live   the 
future !" 

They  recognized  the  voice  of  Prouvaire. 

A  flash  passed,  a  report  rang  out. 

Silence  fell  again. 

"They  have  killed  him,"  exclaimed  Combeferre. 

Enjolras  glanced  at  Javert,  and  said  to  him: — 

"Your  friends  have  just  shot  you." 


CHAPTER   VI 

THE  AGONY  OF  DEATH  AFTER  THE  AGONY  OF  LIFE 

A  PECULIARITY  of  this  species  of  war  is,  that  the  attack  of 
the  barricades  is  almost  always  made  from  the  front,  and  that 
the  assailants  generally  abstain  from  turning  the  position, 
either  because  they  fear  ambushes,  or  because  they  are  afraid 
of  getting  entangled  in  the  tortuous  streets.  The  insurgents' 
whole  attention  had  been  directed,  therefore,  to  the  grand 
barricade,  which  was,  evidently,  the  spot  always  menaced,  and 
there  the  struggle  would  infallibly  recommence.  But  Marius 
thought  of  the  little  barricade,  and  went  thither.  It  was 
deserted  and  guarded  only  by  the  fire-pot  which  trembled 
between  the  paving-stones.  Moreover,  the  Mondetour  alley, 
and  the  branches  of  the  Rue  de  la  Petite  Truanderie  and  the 
Rue  du  Cygne  were  profoundly  calm. 

As  Marius  was  withdrawing,  after  concluding  his  inspec- 
tion, he  heard  his  name  pronounced  feebly  in  the  darkness. 

"Monsieur  Marius !" 

He  started,  for  he  recognized  the  voice  which  had  called  to 
him  two  hours  before  through  the  gate  in  the  Rue  Plumet. 

Only,  the  voice  now  seemed  to  be  nothing  more  than  a 
breath. 

He  looked  about  him.  but  saw  no  one. 

Marius  thought  he  had  been  mistaken,  that  it  was  an  illu- 


THE    (JRANDEURS    OF   DESPAIR  375 

sion  added  by  his  mind  to  the  extraordinary  realities  which 
were  clashing  around  him.  He  advanced  a  step,  in  order  to 
quit  the  distant  recess  where  the  barricade  lay. 

"Monsieur  Marius !"  repeated  the  voice. 

This  time  he  could  not  doubt  that  he  had  heard  it  distinctly ; 
he  looked  and  saw  nothing. 

"At  your  feet,"  said  the  voice. 

He  bent  down,  and  saw  in  the  darkness  a  form  which  was 
dragging  itself  towards  him. 

It  was  crawling  along  the  pavement.  It  was  this  that  had 
spoken  to  him. 

The  fire-pot  allowed  him  to  distinguish  a  blouse,  torn 
trousers  of  coarse  velvet,  bare  feet,  and  something  which 
resembled  a  pool  of  blood.  Marius  indistinctly  made  out  a 
pale  head  which  was  lifted  towards  him  and  which  was  say- 
ing to  him : — 

"You  do  not  recognize  me?" 

"No." 

"fiponine." 

Marius  beni  hastily  down.  It  was,  in  fact,  that  unhappy 
child.  She  was  dressed  in  men's  clothes. 

"How  come  yo^  here?    What  are  you  doing  here?" 

"I  am  dying,"  ^aid  she. 

There  are  words  and  incidents  which  arouse  dejected  beings. 
Marius  cried  out  with  a  start: — 

"You  are  wounded  !  Wait,  I  will  carry  you  into  the  room ! 
They  will  attend  to  you  there.  Is  it  serious?  How  must  I 
take  hold  of  you  in  order  not  to  hurt  you?  Where  do  you 
suffer  ?  Help  !  My  God  !  But  why  did  you  come  hither  ?" 

And  he  tried  to  pass  his  arm  under  her,  in  order  to  raise  her. 

She  uttered  a  feeble1  cry. 

"Have  I  hurt  you?"  asked  Marius. 

"A  little." 

"But  I  only  touched  \our  hand." 

She  raised  her  hand  to  Marius,  and  in  the  middle  of  that 
hand  Marius  saw  a  black  hole. 

"What  is  the  matter  with  your  hand?"  said  he. 


376  8AINT-DENI8 

"It  is  pierced." 

"Pierced?" 

"Yes." 

"What  with?" 

"A  bullet." 

"How  ?" 

"Did  you  see  a  gun  aimed  at  you?" 

"Yes,  and  a  hand  stopping  it." 

"It  was  mine." 

Marius  was  seized  with  a  shudder. 

"What  madness !  Poor  child !  But  so  much  the  better,  if 
that  is  all,  it  is  nothing,  let  me  carry  you  to  a  bed.  They  will 
dress  your  wound ;  one  does  not  die  of  a  pierced  hand." 

She  murmured : — 

"The  bullet  traversed  my  hand,  but  it  came  out  through  my 
back.  It  is  useless  to  remove  me  from  this  spot.  I  will  tell 
you  how  you  can  care  for  me  better  than  any  surgeon.  Sit 
down  near  me  on  this  stone." 

He  obeyed;  she  laid  her  head  on  Marius'  knees,  and,  with- 
out looking  at  him,  she  said : — 

"Oh  !  How  good  this  is  !  How  comfortable  this  is !  There ; 
I  no  longer  suffer." 

She  remained  silent  for  a  moment,  then  she  turned  her  face 
with  an  effort,  and  looked  at  Marius. 

"Do  you  know  what,  Monsieur  Marius?  It  puzzled  me 
because  you  entered  that  garden ;  it  was  stupid,  because  it  was 
I  who  showed  you  that  house ;  and  then,  I  ought  to  have  said 
to  myself  that  a  young  man  like  you — " 

She  paused,  and  overstepping  the  sombre  transitions  that 
undoubtedly  existed  in  her  mind,  she  resumed  with  a  heart- 
rending smile: — 

"You  thought  me  ugly,  didn't  you?" 

She  continued : — 

"You  see,  you  are  lost !  Now,  no  one  can  get  out  of  the 
barricade.  It  was  I  who  led  you  here,  by  the  way !  You  are 
going  to  die,  I  count  upon  that.  And  yet,  when  I  saw  them 
taking  aim  at  you,  I  put  my  hand  on  the  muzzle  of  the  gun. 


AM     DYING."     SAID     SHE 


THE    GRANDEURS   OF  DEHPAIR  377 

How  queer  it  is !  But  it  was  because  I  wanted  to  die  before 
you.  When  I  received  that  bullet,  I  dragged  myself  here,  no 
one  saw  me,  no  one  picked  me  up,  I  was  waiting  for  you,  I 
said:  'So  he  is  not  coming!'  Oh,  if  you  only  knew.  I  bit 
my  blouse,  I  suffered  so !  Now  I  am  well.  Do  you  remember 
the  day  I  entered  your  chamber  and  when  I  looked  at  myself 
in  your  mirror,  and  the  day  when  I  came  to  you  on  the  boule- 
vard near  the  washerwomen  ?  How  the  birds  sang  !  That  was 
a  long  time  ago.  You  gave  me  a  hundred  sous,  and  I  said  to 
you :  'I  don't  want  your  money.'  I  hope  you  picked  up  your 
coin  ?  You  are  not  rich.  I  did  not  think  to  tell  you  to  pick  it 
up.  The  sun  was  shining  bright,  and  it  was  not  cold.  Do 
you  remember,  Monsieur  Marius  ?  Oh  !  How  happy  I  am  ! 
Every  one  is  going  to  die." 

She  had  a  mad,  grave,  and  heart-breaking  air.  Her  torn 
blouse  disclosed  her  bare  throat. 

As  she  talked,  she  pressed  her  pierced  hand  to  her  breast, 
where  there  was  another  hole,  and  whence  there  spurted  from 
moment  to  moment  a  stream  of  blood,  like  a  jet  of  wine  from 
an  open  bung-hole. 

Marius  gazed  at  this  unfortunate  creature  with  profound 
compassion. 

"Oh !"  she  resumed,  "it  is  coming  again,  I  am  stifling !" 

She  caught  up  her  blouse  and  bit  it,  and  her  limbs  stiffened 
on  the  pavement. 

At  that  moment  the  young  cock's  crow  executed  by  little 
Gavroche  resounded  through  the  barricade. 

The  child  had  mounted  a  table  to  load  his  gun,  and  was 
singing  gayly  the  song  then  so  popular: — 

"En  voyant  Lafayette,  "On  beholding  Lafayette, 
Le  gendarme  rf-pMe: —  The  gendarme  repeats:  — 

Sauvons  nous!  sauvons  nous!  Let  us  flee!  let  us  flee! 

sauvons  nous!"  let  us  flee!" 

fiponine  raised  herself  and  listened ;  then  she  murmured  : — 

"It  is  he." 

And  turning  to  Marius: — 


378  SAINT-DENIS 

"My  brother  is  here.  He  must  not  see  me.  He  would 
scold  me." 

"Your  brother?"  inquired  Marius,  who  was  meditating  in 
the  most  bitter  and  sorrowful  depths  of  his  heart  on  the  duties 
to  the  Thenardiers  which  his  father  had  bequeathed  to  him ; 
"who  is  your  brother  ?" 

"That  little  fellow." 

"The  one  who  is  singing?" 

"Yes." 

Marius  made  a  movement. 

"Oh !  don't  go  away,"  said  she,  "it  will  not  be  long  now." 

She  was  sitting  almost  upright,  but  her  voice  was  very  low 
and  broken  by  hiccoughs. 

At  intervals,  the  death  rattle  interrupted  her.  She  put  her 
face  as  near  that  of  Marius  as  possible.  She  added  with  a 
etrange  expression : — 

"Listen,  I  do  not  wish  to  play  you  a  trick.  I  have  a  letter 
in  my  pocket  for  you.  I  was  told  to  put  it  in  the  post.  I  kept 
it.  I  did  not  want  to  have  it  reach  you.  But  perhaps  you 
will  be  angry  with  me  for  it  when  we  meet  again  presently? 
Take  your  letter." 

She  grasped  Marius'  hand  convulsively  with  her  pierced 
hand,  but  she  no  longer  seemed  to  feel  her  sufferings.  She 
put  Marius'  hand  in  the  pocket  of  her  blouse.  There,  in  fact, 
Marius  felt  a  paper. 

"Take  it,"  said  she. 

Marius  took  the  letter. 

She  made  a  sign  of  satisfaction  and  contentment. 

"Now,  for  my  trouble,  promise  me — " 

And  she  stopped. 

"What  ?"  asked  Marius. 

"Promise  me!" 

"I  promise." 

"Promise  to  give  me  a  kiss  on  my  brow  when  I  am  dead. 
—I  shall  feel  it." 

She  dropped  her  head  again  on  Marius'  knees,  and  her  eye- 
lids closed.  He  thought  the  poor  soul  had  departed,  fiponine 


THE    GRANDEURS   OF   DKKPAIR  379 

remained  motionless.  All  at  once,  at  the  very  moment  when 
Marius  fancied  her  asleep  forever,  she  slowly  opened  her  eyus 
in  which  appeared  the  sombre  profundity  of  death,  and 
said  to  him  in  a  tone  whose  sweetness  seemed  already  to  pro- 
ceed from  another  world  : — 

"And  by  the  way,  Monsieur  Marius,  I  believe  that  I  was  a 
little  bit  in  love  with  you." 

She  tried  to  smile  once  more  and  expired. 


CHAPTER   VII 

GAVROCHE  AS  A  PROFOUND  CALCULATOR  OF  DISTANCES 

MARIUS  kept  his  promise.  He  dropped  a  kiss  on  that  livid 
brow,  where  the  icy  perspiration  stood  in  beads. 

This  was  no  infidelity  to  Cosette;  it  was  a  gentle  and  pen- 
sive farewell  to  an  unhappy  soul. 

It  was  not  without  a  tremor  that  he  had  taken  the  letter 
which  fiponine  had  given  him.  He  had  immediately  felt  that 
it  was  an  event  of  weight.  He  was  impatient  to  read  it.  The 
heart  of  man  is  so  constituted  that  the  unhappy  child  had 
hardly  closed  her  eyes  when  Marius  began  to  think  of  unfold- 
ing this  paper. 

He  laid  her  gently  on  the  ground,  and  went  away.  Some- 
thing told  him  that  he  could  not  peruse  that  letter  in  the 
presence  of  that  body. 

He  drew  near  to  a  candle  in  the  tap-room.  It  was  a  small 
note,  folded  and  sealed  with  a  woman's  elegant  care.  The 
address  was  in  a  woman's  hand  and  ran : — 

"To  Monsieur,  Monsieur  Marius  Pontmercy,  at  M.  Courfey- 
rac's,  Rue  de  la  Verrerie.  No.  16." 

He  broke  the  seal  and  read : — 

"My  dearest,  alas !  my  father  insists  on  our  setting  out 
immediately.  We  shall  be  this  evening  in  the  Rue  de  rilomme 
Arme,  No.  7.  In  a  week  we  shall  be  in  England.  COSETTE. 
June  4th." 


380  8A1NT DENI8 

Such  was  the  innocence  of  their  love  that  Harms  was  not 
even  acquainted  with  Cosette's  handwriting. 

What  had  taken  place  may  be  related  in  a  few  words, 
fiponine  had  been  the  cause  of  everything.  After  the  evening 
of  the  3d  of  June  she  had  cherished  a  double  idea,  to  defeat 
the  projects  of  her  father  and  the  ruffians  on  the  house  of  the 
Rue  Plumet,  and  to  separate  Marius  and  Cosette.  She  had 
exchanged  rags  with  the  first  young  scamp  she  came  across 
who  had  thought  it  amusing  to  dress  like  a  woman,  while 
fiponine  disguised  herself  like  a  man.  It  was  she  who  had 
conveyed  to  Jean  Valjean  in  the  Champ  de  Mars  the  expres- 
sive warning :  "Leave  your  house."  Jean  Valjean  had,  in  fact, 
returned  home,  and  had  said  to  Cosette:  "We  set  out  this 
evening  and  we  go  to  the  Rue  de  l'Homme  Arme  with  Tous- 
saint.  Next  week,  we  shall  be  in  London."  Cosette,  utterly 
overwhelmed  by  this  unexpected  blow,  had  hastily  penned  a 
couple  of  lines  to  Marius.  But  how  was  she  to  get  the  letter 
to  the  post?  She  never  went  out  alone,  and  Toussaint, 
surprised  at  such  a  commission,  would  certainly  show  the 
letter  to  M.  Fauchelevent.  In  this  dilemma,  Cosette  had 
caught  sight  through  the  fence  of  fiponine  in  man's  clothes, 
who  now  prowled  incessantly  around  the  garden.  Cosette 
had  called  to  "this  young  workman"  and  had  handed  him  five 
francs  and  the  letter,  saying:  "Carry  this  letter  immediately 
to  its  address."  fiponine  had  put  the  letter  in  her  pocket. 
The  next  day,  on  the  5th  of  June,  she  went  to  Courfeyrac's 
quarters  to  inquire  for  Marius,  not  for  the  purpose  of  deliver- 
ing the  letter,  but, — a  thing  which  every  jealous  and  loving 
soul  will  comprehend, — "to  see."  There  she  had  waited  for 
Marius,  or  at  least  for  Courfeyrac,  still  for  the  purpose  of 
seeing.  When  Courfeyrac  had  told  her :  "We  are  going  to  the 
barricades."  an  idea  flashed  through  her  mind,  to  fling  herself 
into  that  death,  as  she  would  have  done  into  any  other,  and  to 
thrust  Marius  into  it  also.  She  had  followed  Courfeyrac,  had 
made  sure  of  the  locality  where  the  barricade  was  in  process 
of  construction ;  and,  quite  certain,  since  Marius  had  received 
no  warning,  and  since  she  had  intercepted  the  letter,  that  he 


777 K    GRANDEURS    OF   DENPAIR 

would  go  at  dusk  to  his  trysting  place  for  every  evening, 
she  had  betaken  herself  to  the  Rue  Plumet,  had  there 
awaited  Marius,  and  had  sent  him,  in  the  name  of  his 
friends,  the  appeal  which  would,  she  thought,  lead  him  to 
the  barricade.  She  reckoned  on  Marius'  despair  when  he 
should  fail  to  find  Cosette;  she  was  not  mistaken.  She 
had  returned  to  the  Rue  de  la  Chanvrerie  herself.  What 
she  did  there  the  reader  has  just  seen.  She  died  with 
the  tragic  joy  of  jealous  hearts  who  drag  the  beloved  being 
into  their  own  death,  and  who  say:  "No  one  shall  have 
him !" 

Marius  covered  Cosette's  letter  with  kisses.  So  she  loved 
him  !  For  one  moment  the  idea  occurred  to  him  that  he  ought 
not  to  die  now.  Then  he  said  to  himself:  "She  is  going  away. 
Her  father  is  taking  her  to  England,  and  my  grandfather 
refuses  his  consent  to  the  marriage.  Nothing  is  changed  in 
our  fates."  Dreamers  like  Marius  are  subject  to  supreme 
attacks  of  dejection,  and  desperate  resolves  are  the  result. 
The  fatigue  of  living  is  insupportable ;  death  is  sooner  over 
with.  Then  he  reflected  that  he  had  still  two  duties  to  fulfil : 
to  inform  Cosette  of  his  death  and  send  her  a  final  farewell, 
and  to  save  from  the  impending  catastrophe  which  was  in 
preparation,  that  poor  child,  fiponine's  brother  and  Thenar- 
dier's  son. 

lie  had  a  pocket-book  about  him ;  the  same  one  which  had 
contained  the  note-book  in  which  he  had  inscribed  so  many 
thoughts  of  love  for  Cosette.  He  tore  out  a  leaf  and  wrote  on 
it  a  few  lines  in  pencil : — 

"Our  marriage  was  impossible.  I  asked  my  grandfather, 
he  refused ;  T  have  no  fortune,  neither  hast  thou.  T  hastened 
to  Ihee,  thou  wert  no  longer  there.  Thou  knowest  the  promise 
that  I  gave  thee,  I  shnll  keep  it.  T  die.  T  love  thee.  When 
thou  readest  this,  my  soul  will  he  near  thee.  and  thou  wilt 
smile." 

Having  nothing  wherewith  to  seal  this  letter,  he  contented 
himself  with  folding  the  paper  in  four,  and  added  the 
address : — 


382  SA1XT-DEM8 

"To  Mademoiselle  Cosette  Fauchelevent,  at  M.  Fauchele- 
vent's,  Rue  de  1'Homme  Arme.  Xo.  7." 

Having  folded  the  letter,  he  stood  in  thought  for  a 
moment,  drew  out  his  pocket-book  again,  opened  it,  and 
wrote,  with  the  same  pencil,  these  four  lines  on  the  first 
page  :— 

"My  name  is  Marius  Pontmercy.  Carry  my  body  to  my 
grandfather,  M.  Gillenormand,  Rue  des  Filles-du-Calvaire, 
No.  6,  in  the  Marais." 

He  put  his  pocket-book  back  in  his  pocket,  then  he  called 
Gavroche. 

The  gamin,  at  the  sound  of  Marius'  voice,  ran  up  to  him 
with  his  merry  and  devoted  air. 

"Will  you  do  something  for  me?" 

"Anything,"  said  Gavroche.  "Good  God!  if  it  had  not 
been  for  you,  I  should  have  been  done  for." 

"Do  you  see  this  letter?" 

"Yes." 

"Take  it.  Leave  the  barricade  instantly"  (Gavroche  began 
to  scratch  his  ear  uneasily)  "and  to-morrow  morning,  you  will 
deliver  it  at  its  address  to  Mademoiselle  Cosette,  at  M.  Fauche- 
levent's,  Rue  de  1'Homme  Arme,  No.  7." 

The  heroic  child  replied : — 

"Well,  but !  in  the  meanwhile  the  barricade  will  be  taken, 
and  I  shall  not  be  there." 

"The  barricade  will  not  be  attacked  until  daybreak,  accord- 
ing to  all  appearances,  and  will  not  be  taken  before  to-morrow 
noon." 

The  fresh  respite  which  the  assailants  were  granting  to  the 
barricade  had,  in  fact,  been  prolonged.  It  was  one  of  those 
intermissions  which  frequently  occur  in  nocturnal  combats, 
which  are  always  followed  by  an  increase  of  rage. 

"Well,"  said  Gavroche,  "what  if  I  were  to  go  and  carry 
your  letter  to-morrow?" 

"It  will  be  too  late.  The  barricade  will  probably  be  block- 
aded, all  the  streets  will  be  guarded,  and  you  will  not  be  able 
to  get  out.  Go  at  once." 


THE    (1RANDEUR8    OF   DESPAIR  333 

Gavrochc  could  think  of  no  reply  to  this,  and  stood  there  in 
indecision,  scratching  his  ear  sadly. 

All  at  once,  he  took  the  letter  with  one  of  those  birdlike 
movements  which  were  common  with  him. 

"All  right,"  said  he. 

And  he  started  off  at  a  run  through  Mondetour  lane. 

An  idea  had  occurred  to  Gavroche  which  had  brought  him 
to  a  decision,  but  he  had  not  mentioned  it  for  fear  that  Marius 
might  offer  some  objection  to  it. 

This  was  the  idea : — 

"It  is  barely  midnight,  the  Rue  de  l'Homme  Arme  is  not 
far  off ;  I  will  go  and  deliver  the  letter  at  once,  and  I  shall  get 
back  in  time." 


BOOK  FIFTEENTH.— THE  RUE  DE  L'HOMME  ARME 
CHAPTER   I 

A  DRINKER  IS  A  BABBLER 

WHAT  are  the  convulsions  of  a  city  in  comparison  with  the 
insurrections  of  the  soul  ?  Man  is  a  depth  still  greater  than 
the  people.  Jean  Valjean  at  that  very  moment  was  the  prey 
of  a  terrible  upheaval.  Every  sort  of  gulf  had  opened  again 
within  him.  He  also  was  trembling,  like  Paris,  on  the  brink 
of  an  obscure  and  formidable  revolution.  A  few  hours  had 
sufficed  to  bring  this  about.  His  destiny  and  his  conscience 
had  suddenly  been  covered  with  gloom.  Of  him  also,  as  well 
as  of  Paris,  it  might  have  been  said :  "Two  principles  are  face 
to  face.  The  white  angel  and  the  black  angel  are  about  to 
seize  each  other  on  the  bridge  of  the  abyss.  Which  of  the  two 
will  hurl  the  other  over?  Who  will  carry  the  day?" 

On  the  evening  preceding  this  same  5th  of  June,  Jean  Val- 
jean, accompanied  by  Cosette  and  Toussaint  had  installed 
himself  in  the  Rue  de  1'Homme  Arme.  A  change  awaited  him 
there. 

Cosette  had  not  quitted  the  Rue  Plumet  without  making  an 
effort  at  resistance.  For  the  first  time  since  they  had  lived 
side  by  side,  Cosette's  will  and  the  will  of  Jean  Valjean  had 
proved  to  be  distinct,  and  had  been  in  opposition,  at  least,  if 
they  had  not  clashed.  There  had  been  objections  on  one  side 
and  inflexibility  on  the  other.  The  abrupt  advice :  "Leave 
your  house,"  hurled  at  Jean  Valjean  by  a  stranger,  had 
alarmed  him  to  the  extent  of  rendering  him  peremptory.  He 
thought  that  he  had  been  traced  and  followed.  Cosette  had 
been  obliged  to  give  way. 


THE   RUE   DE    L'HOMME    ARME  335 

Both  had  arrived  in  the  Rue  de  1'Homme  Arme  without 
opening  their  lips,  and  without  uttering  a  word,  each  being 
absorbed  in  his  own  personal  preoccupation ;  Jean  Valjean  so 
uneasy  that  he  did  not  notice  Cosette's  sadness,  Cosette  so 
sad  that  she  did  not  notice  Jean  Valjean's  uneasiness. 

Jean  Valjean  had  taken  Toussaint  with  him,  a  thing  which 
he  had  never  done  in  his  previous  absences.  He  perceived  the 
possibility  of  not  returning  to  the  Rue  Plumet,  and  he  could 
neither  leave  Toussaint  behind  nor  confide  his  secret  to  her. 
Besides,  he  felt  that  she  was  devoted  and  trustworthy. 
Treachery  between  master  and  servant  begins  in  curiosity. 
Now  Toussaint,  as  though  she  had  been  destined  to  be  Jean 
Valjean's  servant,  was  not  curious.  She  stammered  in  her 
peasant  dialect  of  Barneville :  "I  am  made  so ;  I  do  my  work ; 
the  rest  is  no  affair  of  mine." 

In  this  departure  from  the  Rue  Plumet,  which  had  been 
almost  a  flight,  Jean  Valjean  had  carried  away  nothing  but 
the  little  embalmed  valise,  baptized  by  Cosette  "the  insepa- 
rable." Full  trunks  would  have  required  porters,  and 
porters  are  witnesses.  A  fiacre  had  been  summoned  to  the 
door  on  the  Rue  de  Babylone,  and  they  had  taken  their 
departure. 

It  was  with  difficulty  that  Toussaint  had  obtained  per- 
mission to  pack  up  a  little  linen  and  clothes  and  a  few  toilet 
articles.  Cosette  had  taken  only  her  portfolio  and  her 
blotting-book. 

Jean  Valjean,  with  a  view  to  augmenting  the  solitude  and 
the  mystery  of  this  departure,  had  arranged  to  quit  the 
pavilion  of  the  Rue  Plumet  only  at  dusk,  which  had  allowed 
Cosette  time  to  write  her  note  to  Marius.  They  had  arrived 
in  the  Rue  de  1'Homme  Arme  after  night  had  fully  fallen. 

They  had  gone  to  bed  in  silence. 

The  lodgings  in  the  Rue  do  1'Homme  Arme  were  situated  on 
a  back  court,  on  the  second  floor,  and  were  composed  of  two 
sleeping-rooms,  a  dining-room  and  a  kitchen  adjoining  the 
dining-room,  with  a  garret  where  there  was  a  folding-bed,  and 
which  fell  to  Toussaint's  share.  The  dining-room  was  an 


386  SAINT-DENIS 

antechamber  as  well,  and  separated  the  two  bedrooms.  The 
apartment  was  provided  with  all  necessary  utensils. 

People  re-acquire  confidence  as  foolishly  as  they  lose  it; 
human  nature  is  so  constituted.  Hardly  had  Jean  Valjean 
reached  the  Rue  de  1'Homme  Arme  when  his  anxiety  was 
lightened  and  by  degrees  dissipated.  There  are  soothing  spots 
which  act  in  some  sort  mechanically  on  the  mind.  An  obscure 
street,  peaceable  inhabitants.  Jean  Valjean  experienced  an 
indescribable  contagion  of  tranquillity  in  that  alley  of  ancient 
Paris,  which  is  so  narrow  that  it  is  barred  against  carriages 
by  a  transverse  beam  placed  on  two  posts,  which  is  deaf  and 
dumb  in  the  midst  of  the  clamorous  city,  dimly  lighted  at 
mid-day,  and  is,  so  to  speak,  incapable  of  emotions  between 
two  rows  of  lofty  houses  centuries  old,  which  hold  their  peace 
like  ancients  as  they  are.  There  was  a  touch  of  stagnant 
oblivion  in  that  street.  Jean  Valjean  drew  his  breath  once 
more  there.  How  could  he  be  found  there? 

His  first  care  was  to  place  the  inseparable  beside  him. 

He  slept  well.  Night  brings  wisdom;  we  may  add,  night 
soothes.  On  the  following  morning  he  awoke  in  a  mood  that 
was  almost  gay.  He  thought  the  dining-room  charming, 
though  it  was  hideous,  furnished  with  an  old  round  table,  a 
long  sideboard  surmounted  by  a  slanting  mirror,  a  dilapidated 
arm-chair,  and  several  plain  chairs  which  were  encumbered 
with  Toussaint's  packages.  In  one  of  these  packages  Jean 
Valjean's  uniform  of  a  National  Guard  was  visible  through 
a  rent. 

As  for  Cosette,  she  had  had  Toussaint  take  some  broth  to 
her  room,  and  did  not  make  her  appearance  until  evening. 

About  five  o'clock,  Toussaint,  who  was  going  and  coming 
and  busying  herself  with  the  tiny  establishment,  set  on  the 
table  a  cold  chicken,  which  Cosette,  out  of  deference  to  her 
father,  consented  to  glance  at. 

That  done,  Cosette,  under  the  pretext  of  an  obstinate  sick 
headache,  had  bade  Jean  Valjean  good  night  and  had  shut 
herself  up  in  her  chamber.  Jean  Valjean  had  eaten  a  wing 
of  the  chicken  with  a  good  appetite,  and  with  his  elbows  on 


THE   RUE   DE   L'HOMME   ARME  337 

the  table,  having  gradually  recovered  his  serenity,  had  re- 
gained possession  of  his  sense  of  security. 

While  he  was  discussing  this  modest  dinner,  he  had,  twice 
or  thrice,  noticed  in  a  confused  way,  Toussaint's  stammering 
words  as  she  said  to  him :  "Monsieur,  there  is  something  going 
on,  they  are  fighting  in  Paris."  But  absorbed  in  a  throng  of 
inward  calculations,  he  had  paid  no  heed  to  it.  To  tell  the 
truth,  he  had  not  heard  her.  Pie  rose  and  began  to  pace  from 
the  door  to  the  window  and  from  the  window  to  the  door, 
growing  ever  more  serene. 

With  this  calm,  Cosette,  his  sole  anxiety,  recurred  to  his 
thoughts.  Not  that  he  was  troubled  by  this  headache,  a  little 
nervous  crisis,  a  young  girl's  fit  of  sulks,  the  cloud  of  a 
moment,  there  would  be  nothing  left  of  it  in  a  day  or  two; 
but  he  meditated  on  the  future,  and,  as  was  his  habit,  he 
thought  of  it  with  pleasure.  After  all,  he  saw  no  obstacle 
to  their  happy  life  resuming  its  course.  At  certain  hours, 
everything  seems  impossible,  at  others  everything  appears 
easy ;  Jean  Valjean  was  in  the  midst  of  one  of  these  good 
hours.  They  generally  succeed  the  bad  ones,  as  day  follows 
night,  by  virtue  of  that  law  of  succession  and  of  contrast  which 
lies  at  the  very  foundation  of  nature,  and  which  superficial 
minds  call  antithesis.  In  this  peaceful  street  where  he  had 
taken  refuge,  Jean  Valjean  got  rid  of  all  that  had  been 
troubling  him  for  some  time  past.  This  very  fact,  that  he 
had  seen  many  shadows,  made  him  begin  to  perceive  a  little 
azure.  To  have  quitted  the  Kue  Plumet  without  complications 
or  incidents  was  one  good  step  already  accomplished.  Per- 
haps it  would  be  wise  to  go  abroad,  if  only  for  a  few  months, 
and  to  set  out  for  London.  Well,  they  would  go.  What 
difference  did  it  make  to  him  whether  he  was  in  France  or  in 
England,  provided  he  had  Cosette  beside  him?  Cosette  was 
his  nation.  Cosette  sufficed  for  his  happiness;  the  idea  that 
he,  perhaps,  did  not  suffice  for  Cosette's  happiness,  that  idea 
which  had  formerly  been  the  cause  of  his  fever  and  sleepless- 
ness, did  not  even  present  itself  to  his  mind.  He  was  in  a 
state  of  collapse  from  all  his  past  sufferings,  and  he  was  fully 


388  8AIXT-DEN18 

entered  on  optimism.  Cosette  was  by  his  side,  she  seemed  to 
be  his;  an  optical  illusion  which  every  one  has  experienced. 
He  arranged  in  his  own  mind,  with  all  sorts  of  felicitous 
devices,  his  departure  for  England  with  Cosette,  and  he 
beheld  his  felicity  reconstituted  wherever  he  pleased,  in  the 
perspective  of  his  revery. 

As  he  paced  to  and  fro  with  long  strides,  his  glance  suddenly 
encountered  something  strange. 

In  the  inclined  mirror  facing  him  which  surmounted  the 
sideboard,  he  saw  the  four  lines  which  follow : — 

"My  dearest,  alas !  my  father  insists  on  our  setting  out 
immediately.  We  shall  be  this  evening  in  the  Rue  de  1'Homme 
Anne,  No.  7.  In  a  week  we  shall  be  in  England.  COSETTE. 
June  4th." 

Jean  Valjean  halted,  perfectly  haggard. 

Cosette  on  her  arrival  had  placed  her  blotting-book  on  the 
sideboard  in  front  of  the  mirror,  and,  utterly  absorbed  in  her 
agony  of  grief,  had  forgotten  it  and  left  it  there,  without  even 
observing  that  she  had  left  it  wide  open,  and  open  at  precisely 
the  page  on  which  she  had  laid  to  dry  the  four  lines  which  she 
had  penned,  and  which  she  had  given  in  charge  of  the  young 
workman  in  the  Rue  Plumet.  The  writing  had  been  printed 
off  on  the  blotter. 

The  mirror  reflected  the  writing. 

The  result  was,  what  is  called  in  geometry,  the  symmetrical 
image;  so  that  the  writing,  reversed  on  the  blotter,  was  righted 
in  the  mirror  and  presented  its  natural  appearance;  and  Jean 
Valjean  had  beneath  his  eyes  the  letter  written  by  Cosette  to 
Marius  on  the  preceding  evening. 

It  was  simple  and  withering. 

Jean  Valjean  stepped  up  to  the  mirror.  He  read  the  four 
lines  again,  but  he  did  not  believe  them.  They  produced  on 
him  the  effect  of  appearing  in  a  flash  of  lightning.  It  was 
a  hallucination,  it  was  impossible.  It  was  not  so. 

Little  by  little,  his  perceptions  became  more  precise;  he 
looked  at  Cosette's  blotting-book,  and  the  consciousness  of 
the  reality  returned  to  him.  He  caught  up  the  blotter  and 


THE   RUB   DE   L'HOMME   ARME  339 

said:  "It  comes  from  there."  He  feverishly  examined  the 
four  lines  imprinted  on  the  blotter,  the  reversal  of  the  letters 
converted  into  an  odd  scrawl,  and  he  saw  no  sense  in  it.  Then 
he  said  to  himself : "But  this  signifies  nothing ;  there  is  nothing 
written  here."  And  he  drew  a  long  breath  with  inexpressible 
relief.  Who  has  not  experienced  those  foolish  joys  in  hor- 
rible instants?  The  soul  does  not  surrender  to  despair  until 
it  has  exhausted  all  illusions. 

He  held  the  blotter  in  his  hand  and  contemplated  it  in 
stupid  delight,  almost  ready  to  laugh  at  the  hallucination  of 
which  he  had  been  the  dupe.  All  at  once  his  eyes  fell  upon 
the  mirror  again,  and  again  he  beheld  the  vision.  There  were 
the  four  lines  outlined  with  inexorable  clearness.  This  time 
it  was  no  mirage.  The  recurrence  of  a  vision  is  a  reality;  it 
was  palpable,  it  was  the  writing  restored  in  the  mirror.  He 
understood. 

Jean  Valjean  tottered,  dropped  the  blotter,  and  fell  into  the 
old  arm-chair  beside  the  buffet,  with  drooping  head,  and 
glassy  eyes,  in  utter  bewilderment.  He  told  himself  that  it 
was  plain,  that  the  light  of  the  world  had  been  eclipsed  for- 
ever, and  that  Cosette  had  written  that  to  some  one.  Then 
he  heard  his  soul,  which  had  become  terrible  once  more,  give 
vent  to  a  dull  roar  in  the  gloom.  Try  then  the  effect  of  taking 
from  the  lion  the  dog  which  he  has  in  his  cage ! 

Strange  and  sad  to  say,  at  that  very  moment,  Marius  had 
not  yet  received  Cosette's  letter ;  chance  had  treacherously 
carried  it  to  Jean  Valjean  before  delivering  it  to  Marius.  Up 
to  that  day,  Jean  Valjean  had  not  been  vanquished  by 
trial.  He  had  been  subjected  to  fearful  proofs;  no  violence 
of  bad  fortune  had  been  spared  him;  the  ferocity  of  fate, 
armed  with  all  vindictiveness  and  all  social  scorn,  had  taken 
him  for  her  prey  and  had  raged  against  him.  lie  had  ac- 
cepted every  extremity  when  it  had  been  necessary :  he  had 
sacrificed  his  inviolability  as  a  reformed  man,  had  yielded  up 
his  liberty,  risked  his  head,  lost  everything,  suffered  every- 
thing, and  he  had  remained  disinterested  and  stoical  to  such 
a  point  that  he  might  have  been  thought  to  be  absent  from 


8AIXT-DEXI8 

himself  like  a  martyr.  His  conscience  inured  to  every  assault 
of  destiny,  might  have  appeared  to  be  forever  impregnable. 
Well,  any  one  who  had  beheld  his  spiritual  self  would  have 
been  obliged  to  concede  that  it  weakened  at  that  moment.  It 
was  because,  of  all  the  tortures  which  he  had  undergone  in 
the  course  of  this  long  inquisition  to  which  destiny  had 
doomed  him,  this  was  the  most  terrible.  Never  had  such 
pincers  seized  him  hitherto.  He  felt  the  mysterious  stirring 
of  all  his  latent  sensibilities.  He  felt  the  plucking  at  the 
strange  chord.  Alas !  the  supreme  trial,  let  us  say  rather,  the 
only  trial,  is  the  loss  of  the  beloved  being. 

Poor  old  Jean  Valjean  certainly  did  not  love  Cosette  other- 
wise than  as  a  father;  but  we  have  already  remarked,  above, 
that  into  this  paternity  the  widowhood  of  his  life  had  intro- 
duced all  the  shades  of  love ;  he  loved  Cosette  as  his  daughter, 
and  he  loved  her  as  his  mother,  and  he  loved  her  as  his  sister ; 
and,  as  he  had  never  had  either  a  woman  to  love  or  a  wife,  as 
nature  is  a  creditor  who  accepts  no  protest,  that  sentiment 
also,  the  most  impossible  to  lose,  was  mingled  with  the  rest, 
vague,  ignorant,  pure  with  the  purity  of  blindness,  uncon- 
scious, celestial,  angelic,  divine;  less  like  a  sentiment  than 
like  an  instinct,  less  like  an  instinct  than  like  an  imperceptible 
and  invisible  but  real  attraction ;  and  love,  properly  speaking, 
was,  in  his  immense  tenderness  for  Cosette,  like  the  thread  of 
gold  in  the  mountain,  concealed  and  virgin. 

Let  the  reader  recall  the  situation  of  heart  which  we  have 
already  indicated.  No  marriage  was  possible  between  them; 
not  even  that  of  souls;  and  yet,  it  is  certain  that  their  des- 
tinies were  wedded.  With  the  exception  of  Cosette,  that  is  to 
say,  with  the  exception  of  a  childhood,  Jean  Valjean  had 
never,  in  the  whole  of  his  long  life,  known  anything  of  that 
which  may  be  loved.  The  passions  and  loves  which  succeed 
each  other  had  not  produced  in  him  those  successive  green 
growths,  tender  green  or  dark  green,  which  can  be  seen  in 
foliage  which  passes  through  the  winter  and  in  men  who  pass 
fifty.  In  short,  and  we  have  insisted  on  it  more  than  once, 
all  this  interior  fusion,  all  this  whole,  of  which  the  sum  total 


THE  RUE  DE  UHOMME  ARME          391 

was  a  lofty  virtue,  ended  in  rendering  Jean  Valjean  a  father 
to  Cosette.  A  strange  father,  forged  from  the  grandfather, 
the  son,  the  brother,  and  the  husband,  that  existed  in  Jean 
Valjean;  a  father  in  whom  there  was  included  even  a  mother; 
a  father  who  loved  Cosette  and  adored  her,  and  who  held  that 
child  as  his  light,  his  home,  his  family,  his  country,  his  para- 
dise. 

Thus  when  he  saw  that  the  end  had  absolutely  come,  that 
she  was  escaping  from  him,  that  she  was  slipping  from  his 
hands,  that  she  was  gliding  from  him,  like  a  cloud,  like 
water,  when  he  had  before  his  eyes  this  crushing  proof:  "an- 
other is  the  goal  of  her  heart,  another  is  the  wish  of  her  life; 
there  is  a  dearest  one,  I  am  no  longer  anything  but  her  father, 
I  no  longer  exist" ;  when  he  could  no  longer  doubt,  when  he 
said  to  himself :  "She  is  going  away  from  me !"  the  grief 
which  he  felt  surpassed  the  bounds  of  possibility.  To  have 
done  all  that  he  had  done  for  the  purpose  of  ending  like  this ! 
And  the  very  idea  of  being  nothing !  Then,  as  we  have  just 
said,  a  quiver  of  revolt  ran  through  him  from  head  to  foot. 
He  felt,  even  in  the  very  roots  of  his  hair,  the  immense  re- 
awakening of  egotism,  and  the  /  in  this  man's  abyss  howled. 

There  is  such  a  thing  as  the  sudden  giving  way  of  the  in- 
ward subsoil.  A  despairing  certainty  does  not  make  its  way 
into  a  ruan  without  thrusting  aside  and  breaking  certain  pro- 
found elements  which,  in  some  cases,  are  the  very  man  him- 
self. Grief,  when  it  attains  this  shape,  is  a  headlong  flight  of 
all  the  forces  of  the  conscience.  These  are  fatal  crises.  Few 
among  us  emerge  from  them  still  like  ourselves  and  firm  in 
duty.  When  the  limit  of  endurance  is  overstepped,  the  most 
imperturbable  virtue  is  disconcerted.  Jean  Valjean  took  the 
blotter  again,  and  convinced  himself  afresh :  he  remained 
bowed  and  as  though  petrified  and  with  staring  oyos,  over 
those  four  unobjectionable  lines;  and  there  arose  within  him 
such  a  cloud  that  one  might  have  thought  that  everything  in 
this  soul  was  crumbling  away. 

He  examined  this  revelation,  athwart  the  exaggerations  of 
revery,  with  an  apparent  and  terrifying  calmness,  for  it  is  a 


392  8A1VT-DENI8 

fearful  thing  when  a  man's  calmness  reaches  the  coldness  of 
the  statue. 

He  measured  the  terrible  step  which  his  destiny  had  taken 
without  his  having  a  suspicion  of  the  fact;  he  recalled  his 
fears  of  the  preceding  summer,  so  foolishly  dissipated;  he 
recognized  the  precipice,  it  was  still  the  same;  only,  Jean 
Yaljean  was  no  longer  on  the  brink,  he  was  at  the  bottom 
of  it. 

The  unprecedented  and  heart-rending  thing  about  it  was 
that  he  had  fallen  without  perceiving  it.  All  the  light  of  his 
life  had  departed,  while  he  still  fancied  that  he  beheld  the 
sun. 

His  instinct  did  not  hesitate.  He  put  together  certain 
circumstances,  certain  dates,  certain  blushes  and  certain 
pallors  on  Cosette's  part,  and  he  said  to  himself:  "It  is  he." 

The  divination  of  despair  is  a  sort  of  mysterious  bow 
which  never  misses  its  aim.  He  struck  Marius  with  his  first 
conjecture.  He  did  not  know  the  name,  but  he  found  the  man 
instantly.  He  distinctly  perceived,  in  the  background  of  the 
implacable  conjuration  of  his  memories,  the  unknown  prowler 
of  the  Luxembourg,  that  wretched  seeker  of  love  adventures, 
that  idler  of  romance,  that  idiot,  that  coward,  for  it  is  cow- 
ardly to  come  and  make  eyes  at  young  girls  who  have  beside 
them  a  father  who  loves  them. 

After  he  had  thoroughly  verified  the  fact  that  this  young 
man  was  at  the  bottom  of  this  situation,  and  that  everything 
proceeded  from  that  quarter,  he,  Jean  Yaljean,  the  regener- 
ated man,  the  man  who  had  so  labored  over  his  soul,  the  man 
who  had  made  so  many  efforts  to  resolve  all  life,  all  misery, 
and  all  unhappiness  into  love,  looked  into  his  own  breast  and 
there  beheld  a  spectre,  Hate. 

Great  griefs  contain  something  of  dejection.  They  dis- 
courage one  with  existence.  The  man  into  whom  they  enter 
feels  something  within  him  withdraw  from  him.  In  his 
youth,  their  visits  are  lugubrious;  later  on  they  are  sinister. 
Alas,  if  despair  is  a  fearful  thing  when  the  blood  is  hot,  when 
the  hair  is  black,  when  the  head  is  erect  on  the  body  like  the 


THE   RUE   DE    L'HOMME    A  KM 6  393 

flame  on  the  torch,  when  the  roll  of  destiny  still  retains  itj 
full  thickness,  when  the  heart,  full  of  desirable  love,  stil\ 
possesses  heats  which  can  be  returned  to  it,  when  one  lias  time 
for  redress,  when  all  women  and  all  smiles  and  all  the  future 
and  all  the  horizon  are  before  one,  when  the  force  of  life  is 
complete,  what  is  it  in  old  age,  when  the  years  hasten  on, 
growing  ever  paler,  to  that  twilight  hour  when  one  begins  to 
behold  the  stars  of  the  tomb  ? 

While  he  was  meditating,  Toussaint  entered.  Jean  Val- 
jean  rose  and  asked  her : — 

"In  what  quarter  is  it?     Do  you  know?" 

Toussaint  was  struck  dumb,  and  could  only  answer  him : — 

"What  is  it,  sir?" 

Jean  Valjean  began  again:  "Did  you  not  tell  me  that  just 
now  that  there  is  fighting  going  on?" 

"Ah !  yes,  sir,"  replied  Toussaint.  "It  is  in  the  direction  of 
Saint-Merry." 

There  is  a  mechanical  movement  which  comes  to  us,  un- 
consciously, from  the  most  profound  depths  of  our  thought. 
It  was,  no  doubt,  under  the  impulse  of  a  movement  of  this 
sort,  and  of  which  he  was  hardly  conscious,  that  Jean  Valjean, 
five  minutes  later,  found  himself  in  the  street. 

Bareheaded,  he  sat  upon  the  stone  post  at  the  door  of  his 
house.  He  seemed  to  be  listening. 

Night  had  come. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  STREET   URCHIN   AN  ENEMY   OF   LIGHT 

How  long  did  he  remain  thus?  What  was  the  ebb  and  flow 
of  this  tragic  meditation?  Did  he  straighten  up?  Did  he 
remain  bowed?  Had  he  been  bent  to  breaking?  Could  he 
still  rise  and  regain  his  footing  in  his  conscience  upon  some- 
thing solid?  He  probably  would  not  have  been  able  to  tell 
himself. 


394  SAINT-DENIS 

The  street  was  deserted.  A  few  uneasy  bourgeois,  who 
were  rapidly  returning  home,  hardly  saw  him.  Each  one  for 
himself  in  times  of  peril.  The  lamp-lighter  came  as  usiul 
to  light  the  lantern  which  was  situated  precisely  opposite  th " 
door  of  No.  7,  and  then  went  away.  Jean  Valjean  would  nol 
have  appeared  like  a  living  man  to  any  one  who  had  exam- 
ined him  in  that  shadow.  He  sat  there  on  the  post  of  his  door, 
motionless  as  a  form  of  ice.  There  is  congealment  in  despair. 
The  alarm  bells  and  a  vague  and  stormy  uproar  were  audible. 
In  the  midst  of  all  these  convulsions  of  the  bell  mingled  with 
the  revolt,  the  clock  of  Saint-Paul  struck  eleven,  gravely  and 
without  haste;  for  the  tocsin  is  man;  the  hour  is  God.  The 
passage  of  the  hour  produced  no  effect  on  Jean  Valjean ;  Jean 
Valjean  did  not  stir.  Still,  at  about  that  moment,  a  brusque 
report  burst  forth  in  the  direction  of  the  Hallos,  a  second  yet 
more  violent  followed;  it  was  probably  that  attack  on  the 
barricade  in  the  Rue  de  la  Chanvrerie  which  we  have  just 
seen  repulsed  by  Marius.  At  this  double  discharge,  whose 
fury  seemed  augmented  by  the  stupor  of  the  night,  Jean 
Valjean  started;  he  rose,  turning  towards  the  quarter  whence 
the  noise  proceeded;  then  he  fell  back  upon  the  post  again, 
folded  his  arms,  and  his  head  slowly  sank  on  his  bosom 
again. 

He  resumed  his  gloomy  dialogue  with  himself. 

All  at  once,  he  raised  his  eyes;  some  one  was  walking  in 
the  street,  he  heard  steps  near  him.  He  looked,  and  by  the 
light  of  the  lanterns,  in  the  direction  of  the  street  which 
ran  into  the  Rue-aux-Archives,  he  perceived  a  young,  livid, 
and  beaming  face. 

Gavroche  had  just  arrived  in  the  Rue  1'Homme  Arme. 

Gavroche  was  staring  into  the  air,  apparently  in  search  of 
something.  He  saw  Jean  Valjean  perfectly  well  but  he  took 
no  notice  of  him. 

Gavroche  after  staring  into  the  air,  stared  below ;  he  raised 
himself  on  tiptoe,  and  felt  of  the  doors  and  windows  of  the 
ground  floor ;  they  were  all  shut,  bolted,  and  padlocked.  After 
having  authenticated  the  fronts  of  five  or  six  barricaded  houses 


THE    HUE    DK    L'HOMMV    ARM$  395 

in  this  manner,  the  urchin  shrugged  his  shoulders,  and  took 
himself  to  task  in  these  terms : — 

"Pardi !" 

Then  he  began  to  stare  into  the  air  again. 

Jean  Valjean,  who,  an  instant  previously,  in  his  then  state 
of  mind,  would  not  have  spoken  to  or  even  answered  any  one, 
felt  irresistibly  impelled  to  accost  that  child. 

"What  is  the  matter  with  you,  my  little  fellow?"  he  said. 

"The  matter  with  me  is  that  I  am  hungry,"  replied  Gav- 
roche  frankly.  And  he  added:  "Little  fellow  yourself." 

Jean  Valjean  fumbled  in  his  fob  and  pulled  out  a  five-franc 
piece. 

But  Gavroche,  who  was  of  the  wagtail  species,  and  who 
skipped  vivaciously  from  one  gesture  to  another,  had  just 
picked  up  a  stone.  lie  had  caught  sight  of  the  lantern. 

"See  here,"  said  he,  "you  still  have  your  lanterns  here.  You 
arc  disobeying  the  regulations,  my  friend.  This  is  disorderly. 
Smash  that  for  me." 

And  he  flung  the  stone  at  the  lantern,  whose  broken  glass 
fell  with  such  a  clatter  that  the  bourgeois  in  hiding  behind 
their  curtains  in  the  opposite  house  cried:  "There  is  'Ninety- 
three'  come  again." 

The  lantern  oscillated  violently,  and  went  out.  The  street 
had  suddenly  become  black. 

"That's  right,  old  street,"  ejaculated  Gavroche,  "put  on 
your  night-cap." 

And  turning  to  Jean  Valjean : — 

"What  do  you  call  that  gigantic  monument  that  you  have 
there  at  the  end  of  the  street?  It's  the  Archives,  isn't  it?  I 
must  crumble  up  those  big  stupids  of  pillars  a  bit  and  make 
a  nice  barricade  out  of  them." 

Jean  Valjean  stepped  up  to  Gavroche. 

"Poor  creature,"  he  said  in  a  low  tone,  and  speaking  to 
himself,  "he  is  hungry." 

And  he  laid  the  hundred-sou  piece  in  his  hand. 

Gavroche  raised  his  face,  astonished  at  the  size  of  this  sou; 
he  stared  at  it  in  the  darkness,  and  the  whiteness  of  the  big 


306 


SAINT-DENIS 


sou  dazzled  him.  He  knew  five-franc  pieces  by  hearsay ;  their 
reputation  was  agreeable  to  him;  he  was  delighted  to  see  one 
close  to.  He  said : — 

"Let  us  contemplate  the  tiger." 

He  gazed  at  it  for  several  minutes  in  ecstasy;  then,  turn- 
ing to  Jean  Valjean,  he  held  out  the  coin  to  him,  and  said 
majestically  to  him : — 

"Bourgeois,  I  prefer  to  smash  lanterns.  Take  back  your 
ferocious  beast.  You  can't  bribe  me.  That  has  got  five  claws ; 
but  it  doesn't  scratch  me." 

"Have  you  a  mother?"  asked  Jean  Valjean. 

Gavroche  replied : — 

"More  than  you  have,  perhaps." 

"Well,"  returned  Jean  Valjean,  "keep  the  money  for  your 
mother !" 

Gavroche  was  touched.  Moreover,  he  had  just  noticed  that 
the  man  who  was  addressing  him  had  no  hat,  and  this  in- 
spired him  with  confidence. 

"Truly,"  said  he,  "so  it  wasn't  to  keep  me  from  breaking 
the  lanterns?" 

"Break  whatever  you  please." 

"You're  a  fine  man,"  said  Gavroche. 

And  he  put  the  five-franc  piece  into  one  of  his  pockets. 

His  confidence  having  increased,  he  added: — 

"Do  you  belong  in  this  street  ?" 

"Yes,  why?" 

"Can  you  tell  me  where  No.  7  is  ?" 

"What  do  you  want  with  No.  7  ?" 

Here  the  child  paused,  he  feared  that  he  had  said  too  much ; 
he  thrust  his  nails  energetically  into  his  hair  and  contented 
himself  with  replying : — 

"Ah !    Here  it  is." 

An  idea  flashed  through  Jean  Valjean's  mind.  Anguish 
does  have  these  gleams.  He  said  to  the  lad : — 

"Are  you  the  person  who  is  bringing  a  letter  that  I  am  ex- 
pecting ?" 

"You  ?"  said  Gavroche.    "You  are  not  a  woman." 


THE    RUE    DE    UHOUME    ARME  397 

"The  letter  is  for  Mademoiselle  Cosette,  is  it  not?" 

"Cosette,"  muttered  Gavroche.  "Yes,  I  believe  that  is  the 
queer  name." 

"Well,"  resumed  Jean  Valjean,  "I  am  the  person  to  whom 
you  are  to  deliver  the  letter.  Give  it  here." 

"In  that  case,  you  must  know  that  I  was  sent  from  the 
barricade." 

"Of  course,"  said  Jean  Valjean. 

Gavroche  engulfed  his  hand  in  another  of  his  pockets  and 
drew  out  a  paper  folded  in  four. 

Then  he  made  the  military  salute. 

"Respect  for  despatches,"  said  he.  "It  comes  from  the 
Provisional  Government." 

"Give  it  to  me,"  said  Jean  Valjean. 

Gavroche  held  the  paper  elevated  above  his  head. 

"Don't  go  and  fancy  it's  a  love  letter.  It  is  for  a  woman, 
but  it's  for  the  people.  We  men  fight  and  we  respect  the  fair 
sex.  We  are  not  as  they  are  in  fine  society,  where  there  are 
lions  who  send  chickens1  to  camels." 

"Give  it  to  me." 

"After  all,"  continued  Gavroche,  "you  have  the  air  of  an 
honest  man." 

"Give  it  to  me  quick." 

"Catch  hold  of  it." 

And  he  handed  the  paper  to  Jean  Valjean. 

"And  make  haste,  Monsier  What's-your-name,  for  Mam- 
sellc  Cosette  is  waiting." 

Gavroche  was  satisfied  with  himself  for  having  produced 
this  remark. 

Jean  Valjean  began  again: — 

"Is  it  to  Saint-Merry  that  the  answer  is  to  be  sent?" 

"There  you  are  making  some  of  those  bits  of  pastry  vul- 
garly called  brioches  [blunders].  This  letter  conies  from  the 
barricade  of  the  Hue  de  la  Chanvrerie,  and  I'm  going  back 
there.  Good  evening,  citizen." 

That  said,  Gavroche  took  himself  off,  or,  to  describe  it 
'Love  letters. 


398  8AINT  Dl-MS 

more  exactly,  fluttered  away  in  the  direction  whence  he  had 
come  with  a  flight  like  that  of  an  escaped  bird.  He  plunged 
back  into  the  gloom  as  though  he  made  a  hole  in  it,  with 
the  rigid  rapidity  of  a  projectile;  the  alley  of  FHomme  Arme 
became  silent  and  solitary  once  more;  in  a  twinkling,  that 
strange  child,  who  had  about  him  something  of  the  shadow 
and  of  the  dream,  had  buried  himself  in  the  mists  of  the  rows 
of  black  houses,  and  was  lost  there,  like  smoke  in  the  dark; 
and  one  might  have  thought  that  he  had  dissipated  and  van- 
ished, had  there  not  taken  place,  a  few  minutes  after  his  dis- 
appearance, a  startling  shiver  of  glass,  and  had  not  the 
magnificent  crash  of  a  lantern  rattling  down  on  the  pavement 
once  more  abruptly  awakened  the  indignant  bourgeois.  It 
was  Gavroche  upon  his  way  through  the  Kue  du  Chaume. 


CHAPTER  III 

WHILE  COSETTE  AXD  TOUSSAINT  ARE  ASLEEP 

JEAN  VALJEAN  went  into  the  house  with  Marius'  letter. 

He  groped  his  way  up  the  stairs,  as  pleased  with  the  dark- 
ness as  an  owl  who  grips  his  prey,  opened  and  shut  his  door 
softly,  listened  to  see  whether  he  could  hear  any  noise, — 
made  sure  that,  to  all  appearances,  Cosette  and  Toussaint  were 
asleep;  and  plunged  three  or  four  matches  into  the  bottle  of 
the  Fumade  lighter  before  he  could  evoke  a  spark,  so  greatly 
did  his  hand  tremble.  What  he  had  just  done  smacked  of 
theft.  At  last  the  candle  was  lighted;  he  leaned  his  elbows 
on  the  table,  unfolded  the  paper,  and  read. 

In  violent  emotions,  one  does  not  read,  one  flings  to  the 
earth,  so  to  speak,  the  paper  which  one  holds,  one  clutches 
it  like  a  victim,  one  crushes  it,  one  digs  into  it  the  nails  of 
one's  wrath,  or  of  one's  joy;  one  hastens  to  the  end,  one 
leaps  to  the  beginning;  attention  is  at  fever  heat;  it  takes  up 
in  the  gross,  as  it  were,  the  essential  points;  it  seizes  on  one 


THE   RUE   DE   L'lIOMME   ARM&  399 

point,  and  the  rest  disappears.  In  Marius'  note  to  Cosette, 
Jean  Valjean  saw  only  these  words: — 

"I  die.  When  thou  readest  this,  my  soul  will  be  near 
thee." 

In  the  presence  of  these  two  lines,  he  was  horribly  daz- 
zled; he  remained  for  a  moment,  crushed,  as  it  were,  by  the 
change  of  emotion  which  was  taking  place  within  him,  he 
stared  at  Marius'  note  with  a  sort  of  intoxicated  amazement, 
he  had  before  his  eyes  that  splendor,  the  death  of  a  hated 
individual. 

lie  uttered  a  frightful  cry  of  inward  joy.  So  it  was  all 
over.  The  catastrophe  had  arrived  sooner  than  he  had  dared 
to  hope.  The  being  who  obstructed  his  destiny  was  disappear- 
ing. That  man  had  taken  himself  off  of  his  own  accord, 
freely,  willingly.  This  man  was  going  to  his  death,  and  he, 
Jean  Valjean,  had  had  no  hand  in  the  matter,  and  it  was 
through  no  fault  of  his.  Perhaps,  even,  he  is  already  dead. 
Here  his  fever  entered  into  calculations.  Xo,  he  is  not  dead 
yet.  The  letter  had  evidently  been  intended  for  Cosette  to 
read  on  the  following  morning ;  after  the  two  discharges  that 
were  heard  between  eleven  o'clock  and  midnight,  nothing 
more  has  taken  place;  the  barricade  will  not  be  attacked  se- 
riously until  daybreak;  but  that  makes  no  difference,  from 
the  moment  when  "that  man"  is  concerned  in  this  war,  he  is 
lost;  he  is  caught  in  the  gearing.  Jean  Valjean  felt  himself 
delivered.  So  he  was  about  to  find  himself  alone  with  Cosette 
once  more.  The  rivalry  would  cease;  the  future  was  be- 
ginning again.  He  had  but  to  keep  this  note  in  his  pocket. 
Cosette  would  never  know  what  had  become  of  that  man.  All 
that  there  requires  to  be  done  is  to  let  things  take  their  own 
course.  This  man  cannot  escape.  If  he  is  not  already 
dead,  it  is  certain  that  he  is  about  to  die.  What  good 
fortune ! 

Having  said  all  this  to  himself,  he  became  gloomy. 

Then  he  went  down  stairs  and  woke  up  the  porter. 

About  an  hour  later,  Jean  Valjean  went  out  in  the  com- 
plete costume  of  a  National  Guard,  and  with  his  arms.  The 


400  SAINT-DENIS 

porter  had  easily  found  in  the  neighborhood  the  wherewithal 
to  complete  his  equipment.  He  had  a  loaded  gun  and  a  car- 
tridge-box filled  with  cartridges. 

He  strode  off  in  the  direction  of  the  markets. 


CHAPTER  IV 

GAVROCHE'S  EXCESS  OF  ZEAL 

IN  the  meantime,  Gavroche  had  had  an  adventure. 

Gavroche,  after  having  conscientiously  stoned  the  lantern 
in  the  Rue  du  Chaume,  entered  the  Rue  des  Vielles-Hau- 
driettes,  and  not  seeing  "even  a  cat"  there,  he  thought  the  op- 
portunity a  good  one  to  strike  up  all  the  song  of  which  he 
was  capable.  His  march,  far  from  being  retarded  by  his  sing- 
ing, was  accelerated  by  it.  He  began  to  sow  along  the  sleeping 
or  terrified  houses  these  incendiary  couplets: — 


"L'oiseau  me"dit  dans  les  charmilles, 
Et  pretend  qu'hier  Atala 
Avec  un  Russe  s'en  alia. 

OH  vont  les  belles  filles, 
Lon  la. 

"Mon  ami  Pierrot,  tu  babilles, 
Parce  que  1'autre  jour  Mila 
Cogna  sa  vitre  et  m'appela, 
Oil  vont  les  belles  filles, 
Lon  la. 

"Les  drfllesses  sont  fort  gentilles, 
Leur  poison  qui  m'ensorcela 
Griserait  Monsieur  Orfila. 
Ou  vont  les  belles  filles, 
Lon  la. 

"J'aime  1'amour  et  les  bisbilles, 

J'aime  Agnes,  j'aime  Pamela, 

Lise  en  m'allumant  se  brQla. 

Ou  vont  les  belles  fillea, 

Lon  la. 


THE   RUE   DE   L'HOMME   ARME 

"Jadis,  quand  je  vis  les  mantilles 
De  Suzette  et  de  Z6ila, 
Mon  ame  aleurs  plis  se  mCla, 
Oil  vont  les  belles  filles, 
Lon  la. 

"Amour,  quand  dans  Pombre  oil  tu  brilles, 
Tu  coiffes  de  roses  Lola, 
Je  me  damnerais  pour  cela. 
Oil  vont  les  belles  filles, 
Lon  la. 

"Jeanne  a  ton  miroir  tu  t'habilles! 

Mon  coeur  un  beau  jour  s'envola. 

Je  crois  que  c'est  Jeanne  qui  1'a. 

Oil  vont  les  belles  filles, 

Lon  la. 

"Le  soir,  en  sortant  des  quadrilles, 
Je  montre  aux  £toiles  Stella, 
Et  je  leur  dis:   'Re"gardez-la.' 
Ou  vont  les  belles  filles, 
Lon  la."1 

Gavroche,  as  he  sang,  was  lavish  of  his  pantomime.  Ges- 
ture is  the  strong  point  of  the  refrain.  His  face,  an  inex- 
haustible repertory  of  masks,  produced  grimaces  more  con- 
vulsing and  more  fantastic  than  the  rents  of  a  cloth  torn  in  a 
high  gale.  Unfortunately,  as  he  was  alone,  and  as  it  was 

'The  bird  slanders  in  the  elms, 
And   pretends   that   yesterday,   Atala 
Went  off  with  a  Russian, 
Where  fair  maids  go. 
Lon  la. 

My  friend  Pierrot,  thou  pratest,  because  Mila  knocked  at  her  pane 
the  other  day  and  called  me.  The  jades  are  very  charmnig,  their  poison 
which  bewitched  me  would  intoxicate  Monsieur  Orfila.  I'm  fond  of 
love  and  its  bickerings,  I  love  Agnes,  I  love  Pamela,  Lise  buriied 
herself  in  setting  me  aflame.  In  former  days  when  I  saw  the  man- 
tillas of  Suzette  and  of  Z£ila,  my  soul  mingled  with  their  folds. 
Love,  when  thou  gleamest  in  the  dark  thou  crownest  Lola  with  roses, 
1  would  lose  my  soul  for  that.  Jeanne,  at  thy  mirror  thou  deekest 
thyself!  One  fine  day,  my  heart  flew  forth.  I  think  that  it  is 
Jeanne  who  has  it.  At  night,  when  1  come  from  the  quadrilles, 
1  show  Stella  to  the  stars,  and  I  say  to  them:  "Behold  her."  Where 
fair  maids  go,  Ion  la. 


402  SAINT-DEMS 

night,  this  was  neither  seen  nor  even  visible.     Such  wastes  of 
riches  do  occur. 

All  at  once,  he  stopped  short. 

"Let  us  interrupt  the  romance,"  said  he. 

His  feline  eye  had  just  descried,  in  the  recess  of  a  carriage 
door,  what  is  called  in  painting,  an  ensemble,  that  is  to  say, 
a  person  and  a  thing;  the  thing  was  a  hand-cart,  the  person 
was  a  man  from  Auvergene  who  was  sleeping  therein. 

The  shafts  of  the  cart  rested  on  the  pavement,  and  the 
Auvergnat's  head  was  supported  against  the  front  of  the  cart. 
His  body  was  coiled  up  on  this  inclined  plane  and  his  feet 
touched  the  ground. 

Gavroche,  with  his  experience  of  the  things  of  this  world, 
recognized  a  drunken  man.  He  was  some  corner  errand-man 
who  had  drunk  too  much  and  was  sleeping  too  much. 

"There  now,"  thought  Gavroche,  "that's  what  the  summer 
nights  are  good  for.  We'll  take  the  cart  for  the  Republic, 
and  leave  the  Auvergnat  for  the  Monarchy." 

His  mind  had  just  been  illuminated  by  this  flash  of 
light  :- 

"How  bully  that  cart  would  look  on  our  barricade !" 

The  Auvergnat  was  snoring. 

Gavroche  gently  tugged  at  the  cart  from  behind,  and  at  the 
Auvergnat  from  the  front,  that  is  to  say,  by  the  feet,  and  at 
the  expiration  of  another  minute  the  imperturbable  Auvergnat 
was  reposing  flat  on  the  pavement. 

The  cart  was  free. 

Gavroche,  habituated  to  facing  the  unexpected  in  all  quar- 
ters, had  everything  about  him.  He  fumbled  in  one  of  his 
pockets,  and  pulled  from  it  a  scrap  of  paper  and  a  bit  of  red 
pencil  filched  from  some  carpenter. 

He  wrote : — 

"French  Republic" 

"Received  thy  cart." 

And  he  signed  it :  "GAVROCIIE." 

That  done,  he  put  the  paper  in  the  pocket  of  the  still 


THE   RUE   DE   L'HOMME   ARME  493 

snoring  Auvergnat's  velvet  vest,  seized  the  cart  shafts  in  both 
hands,  and  set  off  in  the  direction  of  the  Hallos,  pushing  the 
cart  before  him  at  a  hard  gallop  with  a  glorious  and  trium- 
phant uproar. 

This  was  perilous.  There  was  a  post  at  the  Royal  Printing 
Establishment.  Gavroche  did  not  think  of  this.  This  post 
was  occupied  by  the  National  Guards  of  the  suburbs.  The 
squad  began  to  wake  up,  and  heads  were  raised  from  camp 
beds.  Two  street  lanterns  broken  in  succession,  that  ditty 
sung  at  the  top  of  the  lungs.  This  was  a  great  deal  for  those 
cowardly  streets,  which  desire  to  go  to  sleep  at  sunset,  and 
which  put  the  extinguisher  on  their  candles  at  such  an  early 
hour.  For  the  last  hour,  that  boy  had  been  creating  an  uproar 
in  that  peaceable  arrondissement,  the  uproar  of  a  fly  in  a 
bottle.  The  sergeant  of  the  banlieue  lent  an  ear.  He  waited. 
He  was  a  prudent  man. 

The  mad  rattle  of  the  cart,  filled  to  overflowing  the  possible 
measure  of  waiting,  and  decided  the  sergeant  to  make  a  recon- 
naisance. 

"There's  a  whole  band  of  them  there !"  said  he,  "let  us  pro- 
ceed gently." 

It  was  clear  that  the  hydra  of  anarchy  had  emerged  from 
its  box  and  that  it  was  stalking  abroad  through  the  quarter. 

And  the  sergeant  ventured  out  of  the  post  with  cautious 
tread. 

All  at  once,  Gavroche,  pushing  his  cart  in  front  of  him,  and 
at  the  very  moment  when  he  was  ,°bout  t  •  turn  into  the  Rue 
des  Vielles-Haudriettes,  found  himself  face  to  face  with  a 
uniform,  a  shako,  a  plume,  and  a  gun. 

For  the  second  time,  he  stopped  short. 

"Hullo,"  said  he,  "it's  him.    Good  day,  public  order." 

Gavroche's  amazement  was  always  brief  and  speedily 
thawed. 

"Where  are  you  going,  you  rascal?"  shouted  the 
sergeant. 

"Citizen,"  retorted  Gavroche,  "I  haven't  called  you  'bour- 
geois' yet.  Why  do  you  insult  me  ?" 


404  SAINT-DENIS 

"Where  are  you  going,  you  rogue  ?" 

"Monsieur,"  retorted  Gavroche,  "perhaps  you  were  a 
man  of  wit  yesterday,  but  you  have  degenerated  this  morn- 
ing." 

"I  ask  you  where  are  you  going,  you  villain?" 

Gavroche  replied : — 

"You  speak  prettily.  Keally,  no  one  would  suppose  you 
as  old  as  you  are.  You  ought  to  sell  all  your  hair  at  a 
hundred  francs  apiece.  That  would  yield  you  five  hundred 
francs." 

"Where  are  you  going?  Where  are  you  going?  Where 
are  you  going,  bandit  ?" 

Gavroche  retorted  again : — 

"What  villainous  words !  You  must  wipe  your  mouth  better 
the  first  time  that  they  give  you  suck." 

The  sergeant  lowered  his  bayonet. 

"Will  you  tell  me  where  you  are  going,  you  wretch  ?" 

"General,"  said  Gavroche,  "I'm  on  my  way  to  look  for  a 
doctor  for  my  wife  who  is  in  labor." 

"To  arms !"  shouted  the  sergeant. 

The  master-stroke  of  strong  men  consists  in  saving  them- 
selves by  the  very  means  that  have  ruined  them;  Gavroche 
took  in  the  whole  situation  at  a  glance.  It  was  the  cart 
which  had  told  against  him,  it  was  the  cart's  place  to  protect 
him. 

At  the  moment  when  the  sergeant  was  on  the  point  of 
making  his  descent  on  Gavroche,  the  cart,  converted  into  a 
projectile  and  launched  with  all  the  latters  might,  rolled 
down  upon  him  furiously,  and  the  sergeant,  struck  full  in 
the  stomach,  tumbled  over  backwards  into  the  gutter  while 
his  gun  went  off  in  the  air. 

The  men  of  the  post  had  rushed  out  pell-mell  at  the  ser- 
geant's shout;  the  shot  brought  on  a  general  random  dis- 
charge, after  which  they  reloaded  their  weapons  and  began 
again. 

This  blind-man's-buff  musketry  lasted  for  a  quarter  of  an 
hour  and  killed  several  panes  of  glass. 


THE   RUE   DE    L'HOMME    A.RUE  405 

In  the  meanwhile,  Gavroche,  who  had  retraced  his  steps  at 
full  speed,  halted  five  or  six  streets  distant  and  seated  himself, 
panting,  on  the  stone  post  which  forms  the  corner  of  the  En- 
fants-Rouges. 

He  listened. 

After  panting  for  a  few  minutes,  he  turned  in  the 
direction  where  the  fusillade  was  raging,  lifted  his  left 
hand  to  a  level  with  his  nose  and  thrust  it  forward 
three  times,  as  he  slapped  the  back  of  his  head  with  his 
right  hand;  an  imperious  gesture  in  which  Parisian 
street-urchindom  has  condensed  French  irony,  and  which 
is  evidently  efficacious,  since  it  has  already  lasted  half  a 
century. 

This  gayety  was  troubled  by  one  bitter  reflection. 

"Yes,"  said  he,  "I'm  splitting  with  laughter,  I'm  twisting 
with  delight,  I  abound  in  joy,  but  I'm  losing  my  way,  I  shall 
have  to  take  a  roundabout  way.  If  I  only  reach  the  barricade 
in  season !" 

Thereupon  he  set  out  again  on  a  run. 

And  as  he  ran : — 

"Ah,  by  the  way,  where  was  I?"  said  he. 

And  he  resumed  his  ditty,  as  he  plunged  rapidly  through 
the  streets,  and  this  is  what  died  away  in  the  gloom: — 

"Mais  il  reste  encore  des  bastilles, 
Et  je  vais  niettre  le  hola 
Dans  1'orde  public  que  voila. 
Oil  vont  les  belles  filles, 
Lon  la. 

"Quelqu'un  veut-il  jouer  aux  quilles? 
Tout  1'ancien  monde  sVcroula 
Quand  la  grosse  boule  roula. 
Ou  vont  les  belles  filles, 
Lon  la. 

"Vieux  bon  peuple,  a  coups  de  bequilles, 
Cassons  ce  Louvre  on  s'elala 
La  monarchie  en  falbala. 
Ou  vont  les  belles  filles, 
Lon  la. 


406  SAINT-DENIS 

"Nous  en  avons  force"  les  grilles, 
Le  roi  Charles-Dix  ce  jour  la, 
Tenait  mal  et  se  d^colla. 
Ou  vont  les  belles  filles, 
Lon  la."1 

The  post's  recourse  to  arms  was  not  without  result.  The 
cart  was  conquered,  the  drunken  man  was  taken  prisoner. 
The  first  was  put  in  the  pound,  the  second  was  later  on 
somewhat  harassed  before  the  councils  of  war  as  an  ac- 
complice. The  public  ministry  of  the  day  proved  its  inde- 
fatigable zeal  in  the  defence  of  society,  in  this  instance. 

Gavroche's  adventure,  which  has  lingered  as  a  tradition  in 
the  quarters  of  the  Temple,  is  one  of  the  most  terrible  souve- 
nirs of  the  elderly  bourgeois  of  the  Marais,  and  is  entitled  in 
their  memories:  "The  nocturnal  attack  by  the  post  of  the 
Royal  Printing  Establishment." 

'But  some  prisons  still  remain,  and  I  am  going  to  put  a  stop  to 
this  sort  of  public  order.  Does  any  one  wish  to  play  at  skittles? 
The  whole  ancient  world  fell  in  ruin,  when  the  big  ball  rolled. 
Good  old  folks,  let  us  smash  with  our  crutches  that  Louvre  where 
the  monarchy  displayed  itself  in  furbelows.  We  have  forced  its 
gates.  On  that  day,  King  Charles  X.  did  not  stick  well  and  came 
unglued. 


DATE  DUE 

.    j, 

iU'^419b5 

JftN  ^c 

MAP.  14^ 

R 

I! 

APR 

5  1988 

*   MAR  2 

A  1988  n 

CAVLORO 

PRINTCOIN  U    I    A. 

"I  I II 

A 


3  1210  00514  7291 


